SHARES
“We still do our grocery shopping every week. Sometimes, my husband has to go office to get work documents and even the pharmacy to get medicine. Even though we practice social distancing and wear face mask in public, we are still afraid of bringing COVID-19 home! We have children and elders under the same rooftop!” Nancy worries that her family members are at risk of COVID-19.
In fact, we will invariably expose ourselves to all sort of germs when going to public places like supermarket, workplace or using public transport. Therefore, it is always necessary to prevent infections at home and protect our loved one.
How Does COVID-19 Spread?
First and foremost, understand that COVID-19 is very contagious and can spread like wildfire unless strict precautions are taken. The scary part is that an infected person may not know he is carrying the virus, as a high number of people do not display any symptoms.
So the person next to you or you yourself could potentially be spreading the virus and not know it. Thus during a pandemic, it is best to stay home as much as possible.
Spreading is primarily through droplets from us sneezing, coughing, talking, laughing or even simply breathing. The virus can stay active outside the human body for hours to days in these droplets and micro-droplets. Some may land on surfaces and micro-droplets linger on in the air.
We can prevent ourselves from breathing in these viral droplets in the air by keeping ourselves 2 meters or 6 feet apart from other people and wearing a face mask.
Also, the virus is easily spread by touching any contaminated surfaces, then infecting ourselves by touching our nose, mouth and eyes. Frequent hand washing for 20 seconds with soap and water is very important to reduce transmission.
A much less likely route is stool from an infected person. Hence always flush toilets with the lid cover on.
Photo by Ar-and-associates Arthur from Flickr
Prevent The Spread of COVID-19 At Home
1. Prepare For Possible Illness
This step is very important if you have people at home with higher risk for severe COVID-19 infection. For instance, older adults and people with chronic diseases. Hence, get everyone involved and informed early to prevent the spread of infection to the most vulnerable members of the household. Plan early by identifying which bedroom and bathroom is suitable for separating the sick member from the others, as well as designated the suitable caregiver. Have separate toiletries, tableware, cup, and trash bin to be handled with gloves.
2. Personal Hygiene
Make it a habit for every household member to wash hands with soap and water before and after meals, toileting, touching mouth, nose and eyes, and getting into contact with sick person. Cover the toilet before flushing and clean the faucet after use.
Hand washing is the most effective method for hand hygiene. If there are no soap and water available, use a hand sanitizer but make sure it has at least 60% and above alcohol content.
Furthermore, cover your mouth and nose completely with tissue while sneezing and coughing. Do not cough or sneeze into your hands or towards others. Dispose off the soiled tissue and wash your hands immediately with soap and water.
3. Laundry
Remove dirty clothes and take a bath as soon as you reach home. Do not shake dirty laundry. Generally, you can wash contaminated clothing together with others’ clothes. Having said so, do use a glove to handle dirty and potentially contaminated laundry and wash your hands afterwards. Clean and disinfect your laundry bag too! Also, use the warmest temperature suitable for your clothing to kill the virus. Lastly, make sure to dry them completely.
4. Clean and Disinfect Highly Touched Surfaces
Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces such as door, handles, vehicle door handles, switches, smartphones, wallets, keys, sinks, faucets, countertops, table and chair, keyboard, controllers etc. Use soap and water wipes/spray, or alcohol wipes with >60% alcohol concentration, or even diluted household bleach (about 5 tablespoons bleach per gallon of water).
For soft furnishings like door carpet, sofa, tablecloths, launder them clean routinely or when visibly soiled using warm temperature water and dry them totally.
5. Food Handling
Treat any food container, packaging and bags as potentially contaminated. These products are passed from person to person before reaching the supermarket or delivered to your doorstep. For cooked food, remove any packaging or containers and wash your hands clean. Use your own clean tableware instead.
For raw food, remove all packaging and store them separately from all cooked food. You may disinfect packaging like cans before storage. Wash your hands every time after touching the food packaging and after meal preparation. Cook and heat up your food thoroughly to kill the germs and viruses.
Photo by House Cleaning Service from Flickr
Conclusion
COVID-19 is highly contagious and is spreading faster than influenza virus. The virus spreads through human primarily through coughing, sneezing, talking or laughing. In this sense, social distancing and wearing a face mask is great for preventing person-to-person spread.
In addition, virus spread through contact with contaminated surfaces can happen in public places and even at home. Thus, it is important to practise good personal hygiene and clean or disinfect our living environment.
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References:
1. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [CDC]. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. 2020. (Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html; last updated on April 13;last accessed on 2020 April 20)
2. Cleaning and hygiene tips to help keep the COVID-19 virus out of your home [Internet]. UNICEF. 2020. (Available from: https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/cleaning-and-hygiene-tips-help-keep-coronavirus-covid-19-out-your-home; last updated on 2020; last accessed on 2020 April 20)
by Chang Xian
View all articles by Chang Xian.
