The virus has tainted the way people live their lives. Most major cities are still under lockdown protocol. The vaccines being rolled out will take a while to cover everyone. We are still a long way to getting herd immunity.
While most of us are eager to go outside and conduct our lives normally, you simply cannot go out without observing a few rules. Social distancing rules abound the outside world. Mask mandates are widely encouraged or enforced in private businesses. Temperature checks are done at every entrance and exit. Health declarations are required for certain areas. Thanks to these rules, almost all states are experiencing fewer transmissions every day — save for one or two states.
Due to the nature of man, however, things can still go awry. Hotels in Washington, DC were still fully booked for inauguration despite the existence. People in Florida last year still celebrated their vacations in packed bars at the greatest surge of the virus. Now and then, the national news channels feature men and women protesting the mask mandate by creating fuss against private businesses in social media. Not everyone is on board the rules placed for our nation’s good. In some twisted way, they have distorted their own perspective regarding masks. This is even though in every other country, masks are normalized as a way to care for your community.
Knowing that you cannot trust everyone around you to tread carefully and care for your safety: how can you keep your household protected from the virus?
Upholding Your Own Mandate
Keeping a mask on at all times while outside is a great way to keep yourself free from the virus. The wrong perception about your everyday masks is that it helps you filter out the virus. However, the real effect of the masks shows when everyone else is wearing one. Contrary to popular belief, masks are effective because they keep in the saliva and the other fluids you have a chance to spit out. Droplets travel outside your face whenever you talk, sneeze, and cough. When you are asymptomatic, your chance to spread the virus to other people becomes minimized if you keep on wearing the mask. You do your part if you wear a mask. The mask can also offer some protection to you as well. Depending on the type, it can also keep some droplets floating around away from you.
Taking a Bath Immediately
Bathing yourself immediately once after every time you are coming from an external area can prevent the disease from entering your home. Your skin, whatever type can it be, can easily attach itself with any outside foreign droplets. Our skins have adapted this way to introduce different types of viruses in the system as a way to strengthen our immune systems. However, as the coronavirus of 2019 has proven one of the most fatal variants amongst its cousins, we have to protect ourselves more than usual. Vaccines are still a far long way to inoculating everyone. While we wait for our turn to be vaccinated, we should physically manage to wipe ourselves clean off every single time we are coming from the outside.
Washing Your Clothes
Taking your clothes off to be washed after every single use is vital if you want to keep the virus out of your household. Particles tend to cling to clothes more than the skin. Recycling clothes, while more practical, has a higher chance to infect you with the virus. According to research, COVID virus molecules can cling to the clothes for two days maximum. Relatively, this is much less than metal or plastic. However, would you still want to risk the transmission of the virus when you can have a solution to prevent the same? Take your clothes out for laundry in the laundromat once every few days to prevent clothing buildup. It may cost you a little more but you can be sure the pandemic cannot be transmitted inside your residence.
Alcohol Bottles
Having alcohol bottles prepared at the entrance of your own home can prevent the virus from gaining access to your home. It is a well-known scientific fact that viruses can easily be transmitted from unwashed hands. We touch our faces an average of 2000 times a day. Sadly, the virus can easily be transmitted from ones’ hands to their own immune system. Having alcohol bottles prepared at every entrance to your own home will ensure that, even if you accidentally touch your face, you can still be protected from the virus.
Scientists are saying that we have to learn to live with the virus for the next few years. To move forward as a society, each of us has to do our part. Even just preventing the virus from infecting anyone inside your home will be of great help.
