If you have children, you would have taught them the importance of
washing their hands well and thoroughly. If not, you were taught how to wash your hands -- once upon a time. Here are the six basic rules to follow as washing your hands will prove to be one of your best weapon to protect yourself against COVID-19.
1.Wash your hands often.
2.Wash your hands with soap – don't just
run them under the water arbitrarily.
3.Rub the soap on the backs and palms of
the hands.
4.Wash each finger and between the fingers carefully - you may need to use a nail brush if you've gotten anything under them.
5.Rinse the soap off completely.
6.Use a paper towel (NO AIR DRYERS) or fresh
hand towel or to use your OWN towel to dry them thoroughly.
Watch the video above to discover the best way to protect others when you sneeze!
Key Points
·Bacteria and virus (for example, COVID-19) are
propelled into the air when you sneeze or cough. ·Cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze or
cough. ·Don’t hold in a sneeze – it can hurt you. ·Best way to thwart a sneeze is to use a tissue
to cover your nose and mouth ·ALWAYS wash your hands as soon as possible after
a sneeze and try not to touch anything until you do. ·When you’re out in public, try to remember not
to touch your face, eyes or mouth because someone else could have sneezed on
surfaces you might touch.
Sneeze Science
The speed of a sneeze has been clocked as fast as 100 miles
per hour (62.14 km) and can travel as far as 30 feet (nearly 10 meters).
Each sneeze of an infected person can contain
up to 40,000 droplets. Each droplet can carry
a multitude of bacteria or virus. Each
cough or sneeze can, therefore, spread up to two-hundred million viruses into the
air around them.
While the droplets are floating in the air, anyone nearby
may breathe them in. They may land on
the floor or on nearby surfaces and be stirred up again by air movement and be
breathed in or spread to another when they touch any of the surfaces where the droplets
have landed until the virus or bacteria die.
Dangers in Public Restrooms
If you are in a public restroom, take note: drying your hands using an air dryer aerates the
droplets and circulates them widely throughout a restroom where they can be
breathed in by anyone in the restroom or when they fall on surfaces and others
touch them.
At this point, it is undetermined how long the COVED-19 virus
can live outside an infected body, but early estimates were 10-14 hours. The reason for this longevity is that the
virus lives protected within an envelope or wall that gives it resilience. Note: bacteria
is typically dependent on the moisture surrounding it and once it is dried up, the
bacteria die.
When someone touches a surface where these droplets are lurking and then transfers the droplets to their face, eyes or mouth they are risking
infection. Remember the average person unconsciously
touches their face from 15.7 to 40 times an hour.
Happy Birthday to You, Twice!
Wash your hands using warm water and soap. Lather up while singing “Happy Birthday” twice (probably silently is best). Then rinse the soap
off thoroughly under running water. Dry them thoroughly with fresh paper towels or just let them drip dry.
Using the moist hand sanitiser towelettes or liquids should
have at least a 60% alcohol content.
Yet, even at that concentration, they have not been seen as protective
against COVID-19 - but they are helpful in reminding individuals of the 'danger in their hands'.
You Know When You’re Going to Sneeze
Most of us know when a sneeze is imminent. The video above documents the reality of a
sneeze. The researchers concluded the
best way to minimise and contain the spread of the droplets is to sneeze (or
cough) into a tissue.
Covering our mouths with our hands is better and more polite
than not but it means our hands are ‘virus-lethal’ when we touch anything else. Plus the droplets spew right through our
fingers. Sneezing or coughing into our
elbow is not all that much better. So
keep a good supply of tissues at hand, especially if you are going to be out in
public.
There is a surprising new group of infected individuals in Iran, with five dead already. Strangely enough, there is no identified link with China and Iran. More to come on that. The spread of the virus is thought to resemble the spread of other viruses. Here are the ways COVID-19 is being documented and suspected of spreading?
Droplets with the virus in them
Droplets of moisture containing the virus that someone simply breathes out or when they cough or sneeze them out. These droplets circulate in the air and can be breathed in by another. The infected droplets also land on surfaces (distances of up to 2-3 meters - 6 feet) holding the virus alive to be picked up by another on their hands and then accidentally transferred to their mouth, nose, eyes or other mucous membranes.
Aerated Human Waste
Through the aeration of human waste -- solid and liquid when someone uses the toilet and flushes it. Very small droplets containing the virus can circulate in the air and land on various surfaces.
From then, others who may be in a public restroom can be exposed to the virus that lands on surfaces and breathed in while it is circulating in the air.
Sewage
In sewage. There are many ways sewage could leak out and infect individuals, including pipes within dwellings that are not set up properly and allow small leaks. Also, when sewage pipes from houses and throughout cities have leaks or break.
Finally, from sewage treatment plants. Further research needs to be done regarding the spread of the virus through sewage needs to be done to formalise how this will be managed and the significance of the threat through this method.
Multi-dwellings
There are reports of the virus spreading within multi-dwellings. A good example is how the virus has been discovered and seems to have spread throughout more than one cruise ships, such as the Diamond Princess docked in Japan.
But also there is concern that the virus may spread within multi-dwellings, such as apartment houses (and the possibility certainly exists for spread within office buildings).
These multi-dwellings are proving to be inadvertent laboratories that selectively isolate a group of individuals. Health care researchers then can document the spread of the virus within discrete populations. Spread within these types of structures could happen from:
contaminated air circulating through central heating/air conditioning
touching infected surfaces (elevator doors or buttons, walls, etc.) As the virus can live outside the body for a yet to be substantiated time and infect others when they touch these same surfaces or breathe in the virus circulating in the air.
There are still many unknowns about this new disease, that
has been designated a pandemic (meaning world-wide consequences).However, there are some things you can do to
try to protect yourself and others around you. They need to be followed consistently during this time:
1.Avoid crowded places and public transportation –
so self-quarantine when possible.
2.Avoid touching surfaces and shaking hands.You may wish to wear gloves when you know you
will be out and about.At this time, in
Australia, non-latex gloves are available in boxes of 100 pairs and reasonably
priced.They need to be taken off and
disposed properly.(More on the use of
gloves in a later post.)
3.Wash your hands thoroughly with soap, scrubbing
vigorously if you’ve been out in the public or exposed to someone suspected of
having the virus.
4.It is coincidentally flu season, so many may
feel ill and more than usual may want to go to the hospital or doctors.Try to avoid this.If you feel you need help, call a health
provider (doctor, clinic, hospital emergency room) rather than showing up and
having to wait with other unwell people who may be infected and not know it.Self-quarantine may be the best choice.(In Australia the support of phone-based and
visiting doctors is a great benefit.)
5.Because this is a virus rather than a bacterium,
the ‘virus germ’ is much smaller than a bacterium.Additionally, because the COVID-19 virus is well
protected by a barrier, unlike bacterium, it does not die easily when
inadvertently deposited on a surface.
6.Hand sanitisers (that rely on alcohol) have not
been found to be effective, although they do give a sense of doing something
and may be most effective in reminding you to keep your hands clean and away
from your face.
7.Face masks may be helpful, but they must be of
the proper type (N-95 Mask – more in another segment of the blog on masks and
proper wearing of them).They must be
worn correctly (again the virus is very small) and will slip through little
cracks and porous materials.
8.Glasses (or goggles) may also be helpful should
you be exposed to someone who coughs or sneezes nearby as these droplets are
small and travel through the air and may land on your face and eyes.
HINT:It may be good
to buy a few masks now while they are available and not priced for the market
value (meaning when there is a great need someone will sell the masks but at a
hugely inflated price).It may be good
to also have some other basic supplies on hand, as you may find yourself
quarantined.
