Easy Cleaning and Hand Hygiene Tips For Cold and Flu Season

Easy Cleaning and Hand Hygiene Tips For Cold and Flu Season

The cold and flu season appears to be here and If you feel like you are getting sick easily during the winter months and are worried about the added stress from COVID19, it may be time to rethink your health routine. The best way to reduce your risk of seasonal flu and its potentially serious complications is to get vaccinated every year, but good health habits like avoiding the sick, covering up when coughing, and frequent hand washing can help prevent the spread of it, stop germs and prevent respiratory diseases like flu.

Bacteria and viruses are easily spread when a sick person sneezes, coughs, and speaks around you. You can also get sick from touching surfaces infected with germs and then touching your face. A simple 20-second hand wash is still one of the best ways to stay healthy and stop the spread of bacteria and viruses. Hand washing is one of the easiest and most important things you can do to stay healthy and stop the spread of bacteria and viruses like colds and flu and maybe even the COVID19 coronavirus.

How Does Virus On Hands Lead To Infection

If you rub your eyes or touch your nose or mouth, any virus from your hands can enter your body through the lining of your eyes, nose, or mouth. Doorknobs, elevator buttons, door handles, ATMs, cell-phones etc. whenever you touch these objects any viruses that can survive on these surfaces can be transmitted to your hands. Many searches have found out that a person touches his/her face at least 22 times an hour.

● When to wash hands: Always wash your hands when going in public or interacting with other people. Wash your hands before preparing, cooking or eating. During cold and flu seasons and due to COVID19, you should wash your hands more often after shopping, touching public surfaces, or other shared surfaces. Always cover your cough. When you cough, try coughing into a tissue or using the inside of your elbow. Even if you're protecting a mask, it's important to cover yourself when you cough.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that you do not cough into your hand as it is likely to touch other surfaces and spread germs to others later.

 

● How to wash your hands: Follow these steps for proper hand washing: 1. Wet your hands with clean, running water — either warm or cold. 2. Apply soap and lather well. 3. Rub your hands vigorously for at least 20 seconds. Remember to scrub all surfaces, including the backs of your hands, wrists, between your fingers and under your fingernails. 4. Rinse well. 5. Dry your hands with a clean towel or air-dry them.

 

Using Hand Sanitizers

All researchers recommend washing your hands with soap and water whenever possible to reduce the amounts and types of all germs and chemicals on your hands. However, if soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol; lower-alcohol hand sanitizers are less effective at killing germs. Whereas, Soap and water are more effective than hand sanitizers at removing certain germs from your hands.