BEST PRACTICES SUMMATION: (Updated with latest COVID info)
- ALWAYS wear a mask of at least 3 layers of non-woven fabric — YES, EVEN AROUND FAMILY AND CLOSE FRIENDS! (It turns out that’s where most of the spread in America is coming from these days! Just because you love each other, doesn’t mean your germs won’t still kill each other, okay? OK!)
- Tape down all sides of the mask (Medical tape is gentle, silicone tape is used on premies in the NICU! PRO TIP: move your mask a centimeter diagonally each day so you’re taping a different piece of skin. That way you don’t have to worry about compromised skin integrity... and a new route for infection!)
- Wear a face shield over your mask... or at least large glasses. Masks don’t protect your eyes from aerosolized contaminated fluids hanging in the air. (You know how humidity is water hanging in the air? It’s like that. But deadly.) A pair of big dollar store sunglasses (plus the mask!) is better than nothing.
- Stay at least 20 feet apart. YES, TWENTY! They’ve done clinical experiments now, and it turns out 6 feet is insufficient!
- Don’t be in the same VENTILATION SPACE as another person for more than 15 min. AT MOST — exposure is cumulative! (And that’s WITH all precautions listed here!)
What does that mean? Basically, a ventilation space is the area controlled by a single HVAC (air-conditioning unit). That can mean a single ROOM, a WING, a FLOOR, or an entire BUILDING!
The vast majority of places in America, smaller to medium buildings – residential or commercial – only have the one HVAC unit. Very large houses and large office buildings may have a separate unit per floor and/or wing of the building. You can usually tell by counting the number of thermostats — one thermostat per HVAC unit.
That means you (and anyone with whom you may be isolating) should be the ONLY one(s) in your ENTIRE apartment, hotel suite, hospital room, classroom, house, etc!
So what does that mean if you happen to be riding out the pandemic with family members in a large house that has separate HVAC units for different zones of the house? You can shut all the doors between those zones, tape off the cracks around all four edges of the doors with masking tape, and treat each HVAC zone as a separate isolation unit for the duration! This would better protect elderly family members and those with pre-existing conditions, especially if you work outside of the home and around others!
That also means we don’t need to be going into stores or restaurants AT ALL! Order online and have them put it in your car for you... or deliver! When something is delivered, have it left outside your door and wait a few minutes for the air to disperse before you go get your order — still wearing your mask, face shield, and now gloves! Once you bring it in, immediately dispose of all exterior packaging and wash your hands throughly!
If someone absolutely must install or repair or deliver something inside your home, go wait outside far away from others or in your car alone until they’re done and gone — but make sure they wear a mask while in your home, even when they’re alone! Those respiratory droplets and aerosolized particles don’t disappear when they leave!
If you don’t already know it, now is the time to find out your homes ACH — air change rate per hour! Unfortunately, residential code in America only requires the air in your home to be completely exchanged every 2 hours (for comparison, it’s every 30 minutes in Europe). That means you may need to be outside or sitting in your car or running errands for at least 2 hours after the repairman leaves until it’s safe to re-enter your house or apartment again!
I know this is a lot, but since we don’t have magic potions – this is it. This is what we all have to do. That’s OK, because we are all fully capable of doing all of this. We’ve done harder, it’s just a matter of changing our habits.
Notice that I didn’t say everyone in a nuclear family has to have their own house. If a nuclear family is isolating together, that’s fine – just make sure that you are ALL actually ISOLATING!
Also, make good use of your mudroom (or entry, etc.) — treat everything that you wear outside the home like it’s PPE. Because it is. Strip it off and put it in the washing machine as soon as you get home! (See the CDC guidelines for laundry, re: COVID-19!) Then go wash your hands!
Everything that I said is totally doable, you just have to be diligent! I’m doing it. Everyone else I know in healthcare and education is doing it. If the rest of the country did it, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
I know it can get tiring – BELIEVE ME, I know! We just have to hang on until we’re all throughly vaccinated and we’ve beaten it down enough — though we’ll still need to take basic precautions, just nothing anywhere so extensive. We can do this!
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