COVID-19 SAFETY AND HEALTH TIPS - Africa House

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COVID-19 SAFETY AND HEALTH TIPS

PROGRAMS

CORONA VIRUS PREVENTION - PERSONAL SAFETY TIPS

Published 11th March 2020

1- SANITIZERS: Always keep hand sanitizer in the car, and be careful which type you use. Alcohol based sanitizers with at least 70% alcohol is the best option. Benzalkonium based sanitizers have mild ability to kill viruses. Bacteria sanitizers don't kill viruses! If you can't buy sanitizers because of panic buying, don't worry there two options. Option one is mix one part house hold bleach and 9 parts water. It's an effective virus killer. The only set back is that you have to discard it after 24hours, because it loses its potency. You could increase the concentration up to 1 part bleach and 4 parts water, and you can keep it up to 7 days, but the concentration will destroy your clothes if it falls on it. And it may burn your hands, if you don't wash it off quickly. Option 2: you mix dish washing liquid soap and water, place it in a small spray bottle in your car. When you think you have touched strange or dodgy object, shake the soap mixture and spray on your hands. Rub your hands for few seconds and the lather will disappear. Wash your hands with water when you get a chance.

2-BUYING GROCERIES. Buy packed items only, avoid loose items. While these items are packaged, they could still carry virus on them due to customers touching the items several times before you picking it up in your shopping cart. Also, the cashier packing your groceries has touched several things (including contaminated money) before packing your groceries. And am sure they don't swap gloves for every customer, so the risk is there. Solution is when you get home, before taking the items into your house where kids will play with the food packs rinse the packs one by one with water in the garden. In my case, we use our steamer machine to steam each package one by one before taking it inside.

3- CLOTHING: in situations where I know I might have sat somewhere public or my clothing rubbed against surfaces outside my house, when I get home I don't wear the clothes inside my home. I remove the clothes in the garden and put them separately away from the kids. Afterwards, I dump them in the washing machine and wash immediately. The same applies to school uniforms too. This means you need to do a lot of laundry (probably every day)

4-HOUSE AND OFFICES: wipe down places and object in your house and office that may be vulnerable with sanitizer. You can use the bleach recipe above, it's a perfect disinfectant for tables, floor and stationary objects. If you walk to popular dirty places like bazaar, open meat market or flea markets; you might want to wash underneath your shoes before you bring your shoes inside the house. Because some people spit phlegm on the floor and this might carry the virus. What you can do is steam underneath your shoes if you have a steamer, or simply make the bleach recipe above, pour it on a concrete floor outside and rub your shoes on it for few seconds.

5-MASKS: when you going into crowded public places with the risk of proximity to people, use your mask. You never know who has the virus or who will sneeze when. Public buses and crowded trains, is a big NO. Taxis is not too risky, but there must be cross ventilation and gap between you and the driver. Masks are scarce, and you can reuse them by steam washing them thoroughly after a good soap wash.

6- FOOD AND RESTAURANTS. Eating outside in restaurants is risky, avoid it. Don't eat at your office desk, unless you know the work space is super clean and no risk of contamination. When you order food from outside, make sure you reheat it in the oven to minimum 80degrees Celsius.

7-MONEY. Money is a very dangerous way of spreading diseases. Try to use card payment when you pay at the shop. If you must use money, make sure you disinfect your hands and external part of your purse/wallet afterwards. Because if your wallet / pursue goes into your pocket, your pocket has become infected with bacteria or even virus. Many people have the habit of placing their hands in their pockets, hence contaminating the hands! So, as soon as you put the money into the wallet/pursue, disinfect your hands and the purse/wallet before pocketing it

8-MOBILE PHONES / LAND PHONES: Mobile Phones are also dangerous ways of spreading the virus because people use their mobile phones many times every day, and often forget to sterilise them. We suggest you sterilise your phone every time before use with Alcohol based sanitizers because it will not only disinfect your phone effectively, it will also not damage your phone like water based sanitizers. Sanitizing the phone is very important because the virus could easy enter into your respiratory tract via your ears when receiving or making calls. You could also use alcohol wipe to wipe down your office or home land phones before using it or when you get to work. Pay particular attention to the mouth and ear piece part of the phone when sanitising the phone, because there might be small invisible saliva droplets from the previous user.

Stay safe people, and stay blessed.

Sincerely,

Management Team

Africa House

Published 29th February 2020

AFRICA | AMERICAS | MIDDLE EAST | CIS

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