This year’s theme for Healthy and Safe Swimming Week is “Pool Chemistry for Healthy and Safe Swimming.” Healthy and Safe Swimming Week is May 20–26, 2019, highlighting the roles that swimmers, parents of young swimmers, aquatics and beach staff, residential pool owners, and public health officials play in preventing disease outbreaks, drowning, and pool chemical injuries.
Chemicals like chlorine are added to pool water to kill germs and stop them from spreading. In doing so this helps to keep swimmers healthy. However, mishandling pool chemicals can cause injuries. Operators of public pools, hot tubs/spas, or water playgrounds and owners of residential pools or hot tubs/spas can take steps to prevent pool chemical injuries, such as reading and following directions on product labels of pool chemicals before using them.
Follow these tips for Healthy Swimming:
- Check out the latest inspection score. You can typically find inspection scores online or onsite.
- Do your own mini-inspection. Use test strips to check disinfectant (chlorine or bromine) level and pH before getting in the water. Most superstores, hardware stores, and pool-supply stores sell test strips.
- Shower for at least 1 minute before you get into the water. This will remove most of the dirt and sweat on your body.
- Check yourself! Keep the pee, poop, sweat, blood, and dirt out of the water.
- Don’t swim or let children swim when sick with diarrhea
- Don’t swallow the water. Just one mouthful of water with diarrhea germs can make you sick for up to 3 weeks.
Learning these tips and making efforts to follow them will help all pool enthusiasts to stay healthy and safe when swimming this summer!
