To Your Health: You’ll be surprised how often you touch your face

By GILLIAN SLADE on March 9, 2020.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com@MHNGillianSlade

I am still hearing lots of questions about protection from COVID-19.

Please stop thinking of hand sanitizer as your first line of defence. It is not. Frequent and thorough hand washing with soap and water is. Sanitizer comes at the end of the line when there is no place to wash your hands.

The News ran a story this week (Wednesday March 4, page A5) about the correct way to wash your hands.

The other interesting facts emerging from around the world is how often we all touch our face, increasing the risk of infecting ourselves. Estimates of 30 or 40 times an hour had me skeptical.

I decided to make a note every time I touched my face. I was shocked. There are the nose itches, adjusting of eye wear, coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose – and I don’t have a cold, placing my hand under my chin, the index finger on the cheek and on it goes. There has been conflicting advice around the world about the protection a face mask provides. Gloves changed regularly can help. Even cotton ones washed regularly.

We live such busy lives that thorough cleaning of our homes sometimes falls behind. When viruses are circulating you need to step up to the plate. Bathroom and kitchen surfaces need to be wiped with a cleaning solution several times a week. This applies to door knobs, kettle, toaster, your keyboard and phone. If you are in an office take your cleaning supplies with you.

A COVID-19 outbreak in the UK has resulted in people clearing out supermarkets as they stockpile in case they are quarantined.

It made me consider what I have at home and how long I could manage without going to the supermarket – if I had to.

For sure I would miss the fresh fruit and vegetables but I could cope. Instead of potatoes I have supplies of pasta, barley, couscous and rice. I have a freezer without about 60 main course meals that could be served with any of those carbohydrates. While I prefer fresh vegetables I always have frozen peas and beans in the freezer for those times when fresh is simple out of price range.

Eggs last a long time but I could manage if I ran out of those after a month. I would miss milk because I still prefer coffee with milk. However, I have a large supply of condensed milk in the cupboard and I could use that instead. I have about 30 jars of coffee of the shelf.

That brings me to another point. I wait for things to go on sale and when the price is good I may buy 10 or 20 as long as I will use them before they become stale.

This helps to keep costs down too. Anything that is not fresh should, if you can manage the financial layout, be bought only on sale. This automatically means you develop a supply on hand too.

Here’s to protecting yourself from viruses and here’s To Your Health.

To Your Health is a weekly column by Gillian Slade, health reporter for the News, bringing you news on health issues and research from around the world. You can reach her at gslade@medicinehatnews.com or 403-528-8635.

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