Coronavirus Keep Disinfecting Daily - Top 23 Germy Spots Around Your Home
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Here’s some good news from the Food and Drug Administration, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Albert Einstein School of Medicine: Regulators have given doctors the go-ahead to test a treatment for Covid-19 patients that’s been used successfully in patients fighting other viral diseases, like polio, Ebola and SARS.
The basic idea is to give seriously ill patients the blood plasma of recovered patients, which is rich in antibodies that target and kill the virus. If the treatment is proven to work with the coronavirus as well, says Johns Hopkin’s Arturo Casadevall, it could be widely available by early summer.
So, fingers crossed that the cavalry rides in sooner than we expected.
But in the interim, our efforts to “flatten the curve” by practicing social distancing and disinfecting our homes, among other measures, are still absolutely vital to staying safe and winning the national battle against Covid-19, especially with many households reconfiguring as a result of the pandemic.
Has your son or daughter returned home from college mid-semester or moved back in after losing a job? Get disinfecting. Is your husband or wife still on the job and out there meeting the public every day? Keep disinfecting. The more virus particles you kill around the house, the less likely it is that one family member will infect another. And as the epidemiologists have learned, Covid-19 can spread quickly within families.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website says to clean and disinfect daily frequently-touched surfaces, including tables, doorknobs, light switches, countertops, desks, keyboards, toilets, faucets, and sinks. That’s a good starter list. But there are many more germy objects you’ll want to hit regularly, depending on family roles and routines.
All you need is 4 teaspoons of household bleach to a quart (4 cups) of water. Any more bleach is overkill and can damage surfaces. Rubbing alcohol (at least 70% ethanol) is a great household disinfectant, too, but that’s harder to find in stores right now. If you’re lucky enough to have any on hand, you may want to save it for sanitizing your hands during and after trips out of the house.
If possible, open windows and air out your home while you’re disinfecting. Not only will this spare your throat and lungs (bleach can be an irritant in enclosed spaces), it’ll rid your home of airborne respiratory droplets that might harbor the virus.