One sick person in office can contaminate half of the workplace by lunchtime

When an ill colleague turns up to work coughing and sneezing, it
really is better if they stay at home, such is the speed that germs
spread around an office, a new study suggests.
Scientists at the University of Arizona have discovered that when even
one person comes to work sick, more than half of the commonly touched
surfaces in the office will become infected with the virus by
lunchtime, the Daily Mail reported.
Some of the likeliest germ hotpots include telephones, desktops,
tabletops, doorknobs, photocopier and lift buttons and the office
fridge.
However, the study also revealed that simple interventions, such as
hand washing and the use of hand sanitiser or wipes, can drastically
reduce employees' risk of infection.
Conducted in an office, the study included about 80 participants, some
of whom received droplets on their hands at the start of a normal work
day.
While most of those droplets were plain water, one person unknowingly
received a droplet containing artificial viruses mimicking the cold,
the flu and a stomach bug.
Employees were instructed to go about their day as usual. After about
four hours, researchers sampled commonly touched surfaces in the
office, as well as employees' hands, and found that more than 50
percent of surfaces and employees were infected with at least one of
the viruses.
"We were actually quite surprisedby how effectively everything spread.
I didn't expect to find it as much as I did," Kelly Reynolds, UA
associate professor of public health at the university said.
And that was in an office environment where people work primarily in
isolated spaces, she added.
Researchers swabbed surfaces and hands again at the end of the work
day. By then, the cold and flu viruses, known for their short survival
time, had dissipated, but the stomach virus had continued to spread,
infecting up to 70 percent of surfaces tested.
Although the cold and flu germs had died off by the day's end, risk to
employees was still high since little exposure is necessary to make
someone sick, Reynolds said.
The researchers calculated that employees faced a 40 to 90 percent
chance of infection with one of the three viruses.