Smart ways to avoid getting infected

On a craziness scale of 1 to 10, 10 being complete bonkers, the coronavirus situation feels like about 120 right now. But the real worry is that it isn’t over yet!

And so, even as we minimise external contact and largely adhere to social distancing norms, most of us continue some of these interactions. For example, all of us need access to milk and groceries and many of us need medicines for the elderly at home. This means either a trip to a local store or interaction with the rare delivery boy at our doorstep. Others, like people who work in NGOs, are actively out and about, delivering cooked food or necessities to those with access to lesser resources. That external contact with people or packages could expose us to a virus unknowingly.

With the Lockdown 2.0 now firmly in place and the Indian health ministry website pegging COVID-19 active cases at over 10500, hospitals, doctors and the whole health apparatus of our country is feeling the stretch. As these numbers start to climb faster every day, there will be a renewed sense of dread among the common folk. The real problem obviously is the fact that there is no known vaccine for this virus yet and that the best protection seems to be, to shun person-to-person contact completely. But all of the interactions I listed above, continue to pose a risk. And quite frankly, we can’t lead our lives in perpetual fear of infection.

The good news in the middle of this however, is that the basics still apply. And at the risk of sounding repetitive, here they are:

Stay Away

Social distancing has become a global mantra and with good reason. It reduces the probability of interactions and infections overall. The chances of getting infected because of some random person that you rub shoulders with in a shop go down drastically and that is well worth the ‘effort’ of staying home.

Heroes wear masks

There was a lot of contradictory advice on this one in January. But now, most of the world’s experts have reached the conclusion that this one, simple action can save you. Wearing masks helps direct exposure to ‘droplets’ from an infected person. If you ride a bike, you wear a helmet, just for the remote possibility of protecting yourself in an accident. Think of the face mask as pretty much the same thing in this COVID world.

Not surprisingly, those two have been the core of the overall strategy to stop the spread of the virus. But we can do more to protect ourselves. Even if our hands unknowingly touch an infected package, we still have two more lines of defence.

Washing your hands (Duh!)

Firstly, washing hands thoroughly with soap helps rid us of any impurities or infections. It is a key part of our own personal hygiene that we need to bring into the ambit of our regular habits. Secondly, since we may not always have access to soap and water – especially when outdoors – the best line of defence is to avoid touching our faces. This breaks the cycle and doesn’t allow the infection to get into our body.

But if you are someone who has been doing all of these things for the past few weeks, you know from experience that this seemingly simple idea has been notoriously difficult to handle. A few days ago, I even wrote about the habit of touching our face and why we can’t get rid of it. If those reasons are steeped in psychology, it perhaps makes sense to turn to it for some solutions too.

So, let’s see if you can use it to avoid touching your face – if it sounds like common sense, please remember that it is simpler understand than to practice, day in and day out!

Wash both palms often

This one sounds so stupid that most people miss it. But the fact is that we get bored of following norms and over time, the habit degenerates into just a symbolic action. A hand wash for example, becomes a quick rinse of the fingers, supposedly because they touched the bag of groceries. So, the best way to erase the doubt from our minds, is to keep telling ourselves to wash our palms. The fingers get washed along easily.

If you feel guilty about all the extra water you are using, you could compensate by not taking a bath that day! (Just kidding. Please stay clean all over ??)

Meditate the anxiety away

These are unprecedented times and being anxious is almost to be expected. When we are anxious, we touch our faces more often. It is like a genetic code, aimed at helping us relax a bit. Again, this knowledge of our involuntary actions can be used to protect ourselves from infection. Be more aware of your anxiety and try to stay calm right through it. If you like, you can read about how to do mindful meditation here. 

Keep your fingers busy

 Think about it. We don’t use our hands; we use our fingers to touch our face. If we can keep them busy, this should be easier to achieve. The good thing is that since we are all home, working on our laptops and phones, our fingers are busy already, tapping away on the keyboards and the phone screens. The trouble is when we stop to take calls in between, we might touch our face. Use a hands-free or a Bluetooth earpiece, so you don’t have to touch the phone all the time. And while on the call, get yourself into a habit of touching the fingertips of both hands to each other. That way your hands are just flailing around anyway.

 Use your left hand for (almost) everything

If you are right-handed, chances are that you touch your face with the right hand, rather than the left one. This is true for most of us and in this situation, we can use this. Use your left hand to touch door knobs, receive packages, pick up veggies off a store shelf. That way, even if you touch something that isn’t ‘healthy’, you won’t touch your face or your mouth with that hand. And you will be ok, especially if you wash that hand too ??

There is a global killer virus causing havoc all over the world. And here I am telling you that you can stave off infection for yourself by doing such seemingly small actions. Sounds odd, right?

Well, think of it like this. If there is a strong storm or hurricane outside, people who are outside will feel the full power of it and might even succumb to it. What would you do in that same hurricane? Chances are, you would stock up on food and water and stay indoors. And just that ‘seemingly small action’ might save your life.

The Coronavirus situation is pretty similar. It will claim lives for sure, but doesn’t have to be yours. And if these small things can help you from stop getting infected, you might live long enough to joke about the stupid things you have to do, to stay alive.

I would pick that over its alternative, any day. Won’t you?