The year 2020 will be remembered as the year handwashing became a practice to embrace. Personal hygiene has long been a pillar of food safety; the coronavirus pandemic not only created massive global awareness campaigns for handwashing, but it also provided food safety practitioners a platform for driving hygienic practices as the simple yet undisputed foundation of public health.
These are the elements of handwashing that have been stressed in the most populated and the most rural places around the world. If the successes in 2020 were listed, I would argue the increase in handwashing and hygiene awareness activities carried out across the world would top the list. Never before has such a large campaign for handwashing been conducted. From flyers to signs on doors to articles, slogans, memes, videos, social media, and TV, the message was everywhere. These messages targeted every single person on the planet: Wear a mask, keep your distance, wash your hands. These are essentially the same elements of food safety that are enshrined in separation and cleaning, two of the overarching principles that keep food and consumers safe.