“Disgusting!” some say. “Not bad at all!” say the others. Do you lie on the bed wearing normal clothes? Hygiene experts reveal whether this is really as bad as some say.
The number that has spread in some online media sounds scary: at least 72 colonies of bacteria and viruses supposedly accumulate on skin and clothing throughout the day. That seems like a lot – and dangerous. Therefore, in some families the rule applies: under no circumstances go to bed in street clothes!
However, Prof. Johannes Knobloch is calm about this question. The specialist in microbiology, virology and infectious disease epidemiology says: “I haven’t counted. But one thing is clear: When I come back from outside into my own home environment, I will always bring something with me that wasn’t there before.”
Expert says: Street clothes in bed are allowed
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Whether these germs can actually be dangerous to us depends on many factors. On the one hand, from your own health condition. On the other hand, the lifespan of bacteria and viruses. This also includes how well they can survive in less than optimal conditions.
“There are huge differences between the viruses,” says Knobloch, who heads hospital hygiene at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf. So-called enveloped viruses – influenza or coronaviruses, for example – only have a very short survival time on surfaces.
“If I don’t pick it up directly from there and apply it to my own mucous membranes, there will be no more infection when I get back home.”
Non-enveloped viruses behave differently. For example, noroviruses, which cause vomiting and diarrhea: Even if you get just a few copies on your fingers and then put them in your mouth, transmission can easily occur.
“But not about the clothes!” Knobloch clarifies. The same applies to respiratory infections: You would have to touch your face a lot or come into contact with your eyes.
The risk of infection is manageable
But when could our street clothes actually become dangerous to us – and what role do beds or sofas play in this? For the hygiene expert, these are very theoretical cases. Of course nothing is impossible.
An example: There is someone on the bus with purulent skin pustules who scratches them and then touches the seats and fittings. It is possible that one of the next passengers will touch these exact areas and carry the pathogen home with them to bed.
“Then it cannot be ruled out that such Staphylococcus aureus will even multiply a little. And if I then have a small scratch, then I could actually get an infection with the pathogen,” says Johannes Knobloch.
However: “They don’t reproduce at all on the dry surface.” The risk is also “very manageable” in this case.
As is often the case – it depends on your own sense of hygiene
The Bonn infectiologist Peter Walger can also reassure: For healthy patients, clothing plays “almost no role” as a way of transmitting diseases in the home environment.
That’s why there are no rules about how best to behave at home. The answer to the question “Street clothes on the bed – yes or no?” So it depends primarily on your own sense of cleanliness and hygiene.
And the spectrum is wide, as Walger, board member of the German Society for Hospital Hygiene, observes. “Some are extremely picky and change bed sheets more often than once every two weeks. Some put a bedspread on the bed, and others don’t care at all.”
Who should wash the bed linen more often?
But there are also exceptions, i.e. people who should be a little stricter when it comes to hygiene at home. For example, people with open wounds, neurodermatitis, chronic eczema or poorly controlled diabetes mellitus.
“Their skin can be massively colonized by germs, which can develop into a risk of infection under certain circumstances, for example during an operation or injury,” says Peter Walger.
These patients should remember to protect themselves and others – for example through particularly strict hygiene and cleanliness rules in the household.
For such high-risk patients, it is important, for example, to wash clothing and bed linen more often – individual items even at at least 60 degrees. “Immediately afterwards there are almost no germs left that could pose a risk,” says Walger.
There is no such thing as zero risk
Germs could also cause problems for allergy sufferers – for example if they sit on a park bench. Because it can be full to the brim with bacteria and fungal spores that we can absorb through our clothing and carry home. “It doesn’t necessarily make me sick, but if I’m an allergy sufferer and have a lot of them, it might actually not be good if I breathe them in all the time at night,” says Knobloch.
His conclusion: “You can’t claim that there is no danger from germs on clothing – but it is very manageable.” Ultimately, there is no activity that involves zero risk. “If you don’t want to expose yourself to any danger, you would have to lock yourself in your apartment for the rest of your life.”
