(Ohio) – Can you catch the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) from food? How should you do laundry now? What other precautions should you and your family take?
Healthy Tip Tuesday is brought to you by Trinity Hospital Twin City.
Mundane household tasks have turned into a source of uncertainty and anxiety as families continue to grapple with getting the basics done while trying to keep their loved ones safe and healthy.
While research into the COVID-19 virus is ongoing, experts with Unicef are providing a few tips to ensure your home is clean and hygienic.
Personal hygiene
Simple hygiene measures can help protect your family’s health and everyone else’s.
- Don’t touch your face
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
- Don’t cough or sneeze into your hands
- Cover your mouth and nose with your elbow or tissue when coughing or sneezing. Dispose of used tissue immediately.
- Keep your distance
- Maintain a distance of at least 1 meter (3 feet) from people who are coughing or sneezing.
- Wash, wash, wash your hands
- Yes, you’re hearing it everywhere, because it’s the best line of defense. Wash hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20-30 seconds.
- An easy way to time it with your children is by singing the full happy birthday song, twice.
- Make sure to wash hands after you blow your nose, sneeze into a tissue, use the restroom, when you leave, and return to your home, before preparing or eating food, applying make-up, handling contact lenses, etc.
- If using a hand sanitizer ensure that it contains at least 60 percent alcohol, ensure coverage on all parts of the hands, and rub hands together for 20-30 seconds until hands feel dry. If hands are visibly dirty, always wash hands with soap and water.
Cleaning Around the Home
- High-touch surfaces to clean and disinfect
- Every home is different, but common high-touch surfaces include Door handles, tables, chairs, handrails, kitchen and bathroom surfaces, taps, toilets, light switches, mobile phones, computers, tablets, keyboards, remote controls, game controllers and favorite toys.
- What to use to clean and disinfect
- If a surface is dirty, first clean it with soap or detergent and water. Then use a disinfectant product containing alcohol (of around 70 percent) or bleach. Vinegar and other natural products are not recommended.
- In many places it can be difficult to find disinfectant sprays and wipes. In such cases, continue to clean with soap and water. Diluted household bleach solutions may also be used on some surfaces.
- How to disinfect
- It’s important not to wipe cleaning solutions off as soon as you’ve applied it to a surface. Many disinfectant products, such as wipes and sprays, need to stay wet on a surface for several minutes in order to be effective.
- Always read the directions to make sure you’re using the products as recommended and to avoid damaging sensitive items such as mobile phones and other electronic devices.
- Consider using wipeable covers for electronics.
What ABout Laundry?
- Doing laundry at home
- Clean bedsheets, towels and clothes regularly.
- Don’t shake dirty laundry to minimize the possibility of dispersing the virus through the air.
- Launder items with soap or detergent, using the warmest appropriate water setting and dry items completely — both steps help to kill the virus.
- Wash your hands with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand rub, immediately afterwards.
- Wash or disinfect your laundry bag and hamper as well. Consider storing laundry in disposable bags.
- Doing laundry outside your home. If you need to use laundry facilities outside of your home, take sensible precautions:
- Prepare laundry before leaving your home to help minimize the amount of time you spend outside.
- Try to go at a time when there are fewer people.
- Maintain physical distance to other people.
- Wear disposable gloves if available, disinfect the surfaces of all machines you use, and don’t touch your face.
- For indoor laundry facilities, wait outside for your laundry to finish if you can.
- Fold your laundry at home.
- Wash your hands with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand rub, immediately afterward.
- Wash or disinfect your laundry bag/ hamper as well. Consider storing laundry in disposable bags.
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You have to keep yourself healthy and fit during this covid-19 pandemic. The tips that you have mentioned through this article will be very helpful for us in keeping ourselves healthy. Thank you for listing it together and sharing it with us.