Coronavirus: Helpful Tips I Learned from Hong Kong

Like everyone else, I’m stunned as I watch the massive shut-down of schools, sporting events, and other public gatherings. I hope none of you or your loved ones have contracted this illness. If you or someone in your family are afflicted with this disease, then please know you’re in my thoughts, and my best wishes are with you all for a speedy recovery.

If you and your loved ones are not affected healthwise, then I want to share some preventive practices I learned when I lived abroad in Asia. If you didn’t know already, Hong Kong was plagued by an epidemic of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) back in 2002-2004. The Corvid-19 virus is also a form of SARS. The outbreak in 2002 affected nearby regions including China, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore. When the SARS crisis was over, these countries adopted health and sanitation customs and established medical care institutions that are helping them avoid the Corvid-19 epidemic among their populations right now. The Hong Kong University has an entire department for researching and handling similar diseases. Japan, despite having to deal with the Princess Diamond cruise ship, is more equipped to run tests than countries that have not dealt with SARS before.

As individuals, we hope our policymakers will soon come to grip on how to contain and stop this crisis. But the success of East Asia regions in preventing, slowing and ending the outbreaks was highly dependent on their people exercising care in personal hygiene and sanitation. When I was living abroad, I learned the local practices on how to manage contagious diseases beyond washing hands. I haven’t seen any public service advice to these ends, or if they’re out there, they’re not emphasized widely enough. So, I’ll share them here:

  1. If you live in a multi-unit building (i.e. in apartment buildings and condos) where the units share the same sewage plumbing system, be sure to cover the toilet lid when you flush. In fact, keep the toilet lid closed except when using. It is also advisable to disinfect your bathroom, especially around the toilet area. Several years ago, my housecleaner in Hong Kong told me the authorities discovered that one of the most virulent ways SARS was spreading around was from flushing of toilets with lids open. The invisible droplets sprayed all over and carried into surfaces and in the air. The SARS virus is known to travel through pipes. 
  2. In public places, be wary of elevator buttons, escalator railings, ATM machines, doors, doorknobs, gym equipment, and any other surfaces that are touched by many people. The managements of our public buildings and facilities, as well as public transportation authorities, have not yet caught on to the need to wipe down and disinfect these surfaces every few hours during the pandemic period. It is best to disinfect your hands afterward quickly if you have to touch such public surfaces. 
  3. If you’re still going to work and you work at a desk, it is good practice to disinfect and clean your desktops, keyboards, mice, pens, and items that are frequently touched. We clean our homes, but we rarely think of cleaning our work stations because we don’t think of our workplaces as “ours”. As a result, our desk areas are never cleaned. Several years ago, a study found that office desk areas contain a lot more germs than public toilets, which are cleaned regularly. 
  4. Disinfect your mobile phones and electronic touch-screen devices regularly. Computer manufacturers recommend we don’t use disinfectant wipes on our devices’ glass surfaces, but with the current outbreak, we might consider an exception. Using a stylus is also a good option. 
  5. If you have to travel for work and stay in hotels, disinfect spots such as doorknobs, light switches, phones (handle and keypad), clocks, TV remote controls, and coffee machine switches. Hotel cleaning staff have a very short time to turn over a room, and these spots are usually not wiped down or disinfected. You can use a washcloth and shower gel provided by the hotel if no Purell or disinfectant wipes are available. If you need to drive a rental car, you might also consider disinfecting the steering wheel and areas where other people would have touched. 
  6. Fruits and vegetables not sold in packages are often touched by many people checking for freshness. You can try washing and disinfecting fruits and vegetables with vinegar, diluted chlorine in water (5 drops of chlorine to 1 liter of water), or soak them in baking soda. 
  7. Fruits and vegetables not sold in packages are often touched by many people checking for freshness. You can try washing and disinfecting fruits and vegetables with vinegar, diluted chlorine in water (5 drops of chlorine to 1 liter of water), or soak them in baking soda. 

I hope the above tips are helpful. They’re all common-sense measures and you may know about them already. Some of them probably sound drastic, and might not be needed in more ordinary times. But now, we might consider exercising a little more vigilance.

 

Take good care of yourselves and stay healthy!

Alexa Kang

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