Be Safe During Fair Season

It’s very nearly fair season and soon FFA and 4-H kids along with a host of others will be displaying what they’ve worked on for several months.

Oregon State Veterinarian Dr. Brad LeaMaster said it’s important to be biosecure, even if you’re not showing anything but merely watching.

“Wash your hands when you go in to see the animals, wash your hands when you go out. Use those handwashing stations. That really, really helps lower the risk of moving any potential pathogens around.”

Food safety around eating at the fair is important as well. Don’t take food home with you, don’t wait too long to eat it, especially in those hot days.

Oregon proudly claims that they’ve had no outbreaks in their fairs for 15 years, something LeaMaster partially credits to the outreach and education.

“We haven’t had a big outbreak of E. coli for a lot of years. We’ve learned our lessons. Those mitigations, those food safety and health safety procedures we’ve implemented, I like to think, have gone a long way. We want happy people at fairs, not sick people.”

Enjoy the fair season, but please do it safely.