During these uncertain times, it’s highly important that you control what you can to keep yourself and your family healthy.
The home is a great place to start, especially since so many of us are spending more time inside at the moment.
Focus on these areas of your home and surrounds for optimum hygiene.
How Does Coronavirus Spread?
The current evidence advises the illness is spread by:
Respiratory droplets from an infected person’s cough or sneeze.
Touching contaminated surfaces or shaking hands with an infected person. You should avoid shaking other people’s hands at the moment and endeavour to keep surfaces as clean and disinfected as possible.
How to Easily Keep Your Home Hygienic
Remember Your Touchpoints
The touchpoints are the areas of your home you likely don’t think about during a general clean. Things like light switches, stair handrails, drawer handles, remotes and doorknobs. These are touched regularly by (potentially infected) hands so should be wiped down daily
You Should Clean AND Disinfect
Information from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) states that both cleaning and disinfecting surfaces is important for effectivity.
You should be removing any dust or grime with a general clean before you disinfect so that the disinfectant can properly do its job.
The virus may stay active on surfaces for between hours and 2-3 days, so it is important to be consistent with your routine.
Clean Before You Call
Our smartphones are never far from us. Transmission could be as simple as putting it down on an infected surface, picking it up to answer a call, and letting those germs perilously close to your face.
In general, our faces are never far from our phones, so keep your technology clean.
Apple has advised using “isopropyl alcohol wipes to gently wipe the hard, nonporous surfaces of your product, such as the display, keyboard, or other exterior surfaces”.
Always use minimal moisture when cleaning and never submerge your phone (or tablet) into cleaning product.
Our advice? Use a small amount of diluted Isocol Rubbing Alcohol (40% Isocol to 60% water) and with a soft cloth, wipe your screen in gently circles.
Don’t Forget the Car
We usually spend a lot of time in our cars, and touch things like the exterior and interior door handles, dashboard and door interiors regularly.
Give these areas a wipe down with a disinfecting wipe (I keep some in the car at all times) and an extra wipe down as often as you can remember.
Personal Hygiene is Paramount
We know you’ve heard all of this before (from numerous sources) but the advice is agreed on by experts – wash your hands! It is one of the best preventative methods.
Wash them thoroughly for 20 seconds, ensuring you reach into all of the crevices and fingers.
Throw your hand towels in the washing machine on a regular basis and ensure that if someone at home is unwell, they have their own hand towel to use.
No access to water and soap? Hand sanitiser is your next best bet (if you can get a hold of any). The product should contain 60% alcohol for it to be effective.
You should also try to avoid touching your face as much as you can to reduce the spread of illness. You’d be surprised how often you do it – a University of New South Wales study found that people touch their faces around 23 times per hour!
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