“Rhonda Rhinovirus” Reveals Disease Prevention Secrets in New Church Video
Contributed By Carolyn Call, ChurchofJesusChrist.org Church News staff writer
Article Highlights
- Watch a new video on communicable disease prevention on safety.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
- Study the fact sheets on safety.ChurchofJesusChrist.org and learn how to be safe during Church activities.
- Include safety training when planning for Church activities such as treks and camps.
“The one key point we want people to come away with is wash your hands! That message is constantly being repeated throughout the video.” —Alan Rogers, Church senior safety manager
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With a positive attitude and highly contagious laughter, Rhonda Rhinovirus unknowingly lets us in on the secret lives of germs and viruses. She shares juicy details of how they travel, where they hide, and how to get rid of the annoying ones.
“There’s a dark side to our community,” says the newest viral celebrity on safety.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. “Not everybody’s as nice as I am.”
The release of the exclusive interview with Rhonda Rhinovirus—a collaboration between the Church’s Risk Management Division and the state of Utah—coincides with March’s designation as CMV Awareness Month by the Utah Department of Health.
CMV (Cytomegalovirus) is one of the fellow communicable diseases Rhonda Rhinovirus mentions during her interview. It is the leading cause of childhood hearing loss in Utah.
“It’s not just CMV that we want people to be aware of,” said Mike Taylor, chief safety, health, and environmental officer for the Church. “The real focus of our efforts is communicable disease prevention and applying universal practices to avoid getting sick.”
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) briefly appears during the interview.
Effective entertainment
Those involved in making the video hope viewers will be not only entertained but also informed of simple practices they can use to prevent communicable diseases.
The Risk Management Division recognizes these are serious topics but has also found that important points tend to be better remembered if offered in a humorous manner.
“The one key point we want people to come away with is wash your hands!” said Alan Rogers, senior safety manager for the Church. “That message is constantly being repeated throughout the video.”
“Hand washing is the most dangerous thing for us germs,” said Rhonda Rhinovirus during the interview.
How will they know if the video has done its job? “A measure of success is when people say, ‘Oh, I learned something new,” said Steven Brimley, a product manager in the Risk Management Division. “They liked the video, but they also learned something too.”
A safety resource
Safety.ChurchofJesusChrist.org is a helpful resource for members and leaders who want to promote and maintain safety during Church-sponsored activities.
In addition to the interview with Rhonda Rhinovirus, the Safety and Health Media Library contains other videos about various safety issues.
One video, “Lightning Safety: An Interview with Sam Cloud,” addresses lightning safety. It won best training video award at the second annual Training Television Awards last year.
With the summer months approaching, youth and leaders might also want to view the “Tracy’s Trek” videos. This lighthearted three-part series chronicles a teenager’s adventures in keeping safety in mind before and during a youth pioneer trek.
“Our motto is ‘know risk,’ not ‘no risk,’” said Steven Hoskins, risk manager with the Risk Management Division. “That’s a key reason for the videos—to get to know what you can do to make it safe.”
Other features added to the website recently include more educational (and humorous) safety videos and fact sheets for various safety topics such as disaster cleanup guidelines, food safety, and heat illness prevention.
Getting sick isn't funny, but the new Church video on disease prevention is. Watch this and other videos at safety.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
