If you come back from an epidemic area, you need to make a very honest medical declaration right from the time of entry to get the best medical support. Your dishonesty can affect your family and society as a whole.
A new Covid-19 positive patient in Hanoi must have made many people extremely worried. But panic can be accompanied by ill-advised decisions, in which people are so focused on what others are doing that they forget about the most basic and effective preventive measures they can take. .
Many young people - a demographic with a low mortality rate when contracting Covid-19 - are subjective because they think that if they get sick, they will only have a mild illness. But in fact, their subjectivity makes them the most widespread carriers of the virus when they do not take the right precautions.
Young people without a sense of social responsibility can spread the virus to the elderly, or people with chronic diseases with weakened immune systems, they are the ones with a high mortality rate if infected with Covid- 19.
In this article, let's review 15 precautions that we need to take seriously during the Covid-19 season:
1. Wash your hands
This is the top note and is considered by many experts to be the most important in the Covid-19 epidemic. Ideally, wash your hands often with soap and water. While washing your hands, you must pay attention to the minimum soaping time of 20 seconds, and must scrub all surfaces on the hands including palms, backs of hands, between fingers, fingernails and wrists.
2. Use hand sanitizer
When you have to be out on the street or in public areas, soap and clean water are not available everywhere. Therefore, equipping yourself with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer is essential during the Covid-19 epidemic.
Note, some "natural" hand sanitizer products do not contain alcohol and only work to moisten hands instead of inactivating viruses. For the most effective inactivation of the Covid-19 virus, you should choose products with one of the following ingredients and concentrations: ethanol (60% to 85%), isopropanol (60% to 80%), and n-propanol (60% to 80%).
3. Hand towels
If you use cloth towels to dry your hands after washing, wash them often. Better to use paper towels and throw them in the trash.
4. Limit handshakes
Shaking hands is an act of politeness and respect. You might consider shaking hands with someone when they are not at risk (not coming from an endemic area, not showing signs of fever, cough, or shortness of breath). However, it is still best to limit it.
5. Minimize touching your face with your hands
It is an unconscious habit and very difficult to break. However, you should limit it as much as possible.
6. Use the toilet
The Covid-19 epidemic is the time when public toilets, especially in buildings, should be left open at all times. This allows people to use their feet to push the door in, instead of touching the doorknob and having to turn it.
7. Decontamination of surfaces
Different from normal cleaning, decontamination of surfaces is the use of chemicals such as javen water, which has antibacterial properties and inactivates viruses and pathogens to clean.
The Singapore Environment Agency has released a list of products and active ingredients that have the ability to kill corona virus. Accordingly, you should choose products with one of the following compound ingredients:
Sodium hypochlorite (0.1 – 0.5%), 70% ethyl alcohol, Povidone-iodine (1% iodine), Chloroxylenol (0.12%), 50% isopropanol, 0.05% benzalkonium chloride (Quaternary Ammonium Compound), 50ppm iodine in iodophor, 0.23% sodium chlorite, 1% cresol soap (sodium alkyl-benzene-zene sulfonate) and Hydrogen peroxide (0.5-7.0%).
8. Phone cleaning
Your cell phone is probably the surface you touch the most during the day. One study estimates that the Covid-19 virus can survive up to 96 hours on a phone screen. Therefore, clean your phone at least once a day, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
9. Wear a mask
Masks have a preventive effect when you wear them correctly and at the right time. Wearing a mask is to wear a full face mask, covering the entire nose and mouth.
The times to wear a mask are when: you yourself have symptoms of fever, cough or sneeze; have to care for a loved one in the home who has symptoms of Covid-19; sharing a room, in a small space, or having close contact less than 2 meters with someone you suspect is infected
10. But use masks sparingly, don't hoard
Some doctors have had to urge people to stop hoarding masks and use them in unnecessary cases. This could create a scarcity, leaving those most at risk of contracting the disease without a mask to use.
Those are the doctors and nurses who are on the front lines of the fight against the epidemic. If medics are left unprotected and unable to work when infected, it will be a new crisis.
11. Food storage problem
Stockpiling real food is essential for people in remote areas where the supply of goods is limited.
But in regions where food supplies are not limited, like in Vietnam, for example, stockpiling food is not recommended because it can cause unnecessary panic. Overcrowding in supermarkets is also a condition that increases the risk of disease spread.
12. The problem of drug stocking
Like food, in remote areas, chronic patients need to stock up on medicine. This is especially true for people with underlying medical conditions who are at high risk for Covid-19, as they may be advised to stay at home for extended periods of time.
The health system should ensure the supply of medicines, avoiding shortages of medicines or making patients unable to access them.
13. Avoid traveling, self-quarantine upon return
It is obvious, you should not travel to places that are considered epidemic areas and Covid-19 is spreading.
If you must travel, or must travel for business, you should follow proper hygiene measures, protect yourself, and make an honest medical declaration at your destinations and when you return home. If returning from an epidemic area, self-isolate and seek support from health authorities.
14. Stay home when possible
Even though it's an extreme measure, you have to go to work, go to school, or fulfill other important obligations. However, staying at home during the pandemic may be the simplest and best way you can do to prevent illness.
Elderly people, people with underlying medical conditions who are at high risk of dying during the Covid-19 epidemic should stay at home when possible. Businesses, schools and organizations should consider adopting forms of remote learning and working.
15. When to see a doctor?
This is possibly the most important question: When do you need to see a doctor or seek medical help? Most of us will be subjective with mild flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, runny nose. Health experts say that if you have these symptoms, you should isolate yourself at home immediately.
If you come back from an epidemic area, you need to make a very honest medical declaration right from the time of entry to get the best medical support. Your dishonesty can affect your own family, those around you, and society as a whole.
Those who have not returned from an epidemic area, have no epidemiological factors but have symptoms of flu, fever and cough should self-isolate at home and call the hotline when having severe symptoms of shortness of breath.
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