CORONA MYTH BUSTER Series 5

India

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New Delhi, March 23, 2020 :

Dr K K Aggarwal

President CMAAO, HCFI and Past National President CMAAO

One can consume alcohol during lock down : During lock down it’s important to continue looking after your physical and mental health.

Here’s WHO’s advice :

• Eat healthy to boost your immune system.
• Limit alcohol and sugary drinks.
• Don’t smoke. It can exacerbate COVID-19 symptoms and increase your risk of getting seriously sick.
• Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day for adults and an hour a day for kids.
• If you’re allowed to go outside, go for a walk, run or bike ride while keeping a safe distance from others.
• If you can’t leave the house, dance, do some yoga or walk up and down the stairs.
• People working from home shouldn’t sit too long in the same position.
• Take a 3-minute break every 30 minutes.
• Get your mind off the crisis. Listen to music, read a book or play a game.
• Get your information from reliable sources once or twice a day

All infected patients need to be admitted : Home management is appropriate for patients with mild infection who can be adequately isolated in the outpatient setting. Management of such patients should focus on prevention of transmission to others and monitoring for clinical deterioration, which should prompt hospitalization.

Outpatients with COVID-19 should stay at home and try to separate themselves from other people and animals in the household. They should wear a facemask when in the same room (or vehicle) as other people and when presenting to health care settings. Disinfection of frequently touched surfaces is also important.

World Health Organization. Home care for patients with suspected novel coronavirus (nCoV) infection presenting with mild symptoms and management of contacts. Updated February 4, 2020.

https://www.who.int/publications-detail/home-care-for-patients-with-suspected-novel-coronavirus-(ncov)-infection-presenting-with-mild-symptoms-and-management-of-contacts (Accessed on February 14, 2020).

There is no definition of “How close is too close” : The US CDC recommends keeping a distance of six feet from other people to minimize the possibility of infection. (A useful way to think about six feet is that it’s roughly twice the length of the average person’s extended arm.) Three feet is the distance the W.H.O. emphasizes as particularly risky when standing near a person who is coughing or sneezing.

Still, other public health experts say that at this crucial moment, when the world still has an opportunity to slow the transmission of the coronavirus, any number of feet is too close. By cutting out all but essential in-person interactions, we can help flatten the curve, they say, keeping the number of sick people to levels that medical providers can manage.

Prolonged contact is required with an infected person :It’s not yet clear, but most experts agree that more time equals more risk.

The virus cannot last on a bus pole, a touch screen : After numerous people who attended a Buddhist temple in Hong Kong fell ill, the city’s Center for Health Protection collected samples from the site. Restroom faucets and the cloth covers over Buddhist texts tested positive for the coronavirus.

A recent study  found that it could live for three days on plastic and steel. If you are ordering lots of supplies online, you may be relieved to know that the virus did poorly on cardboard — it disintegrated over the course of a day. It survived for about four hours on copper

Dirty surfaces are more likely to keep the virus : No, whether a surface looks dirty or clean is irrelevant. If an infected person sneezed and a droplet landed on a surface, a person who then touched that surface could pick it up. How much is required to infect a person is unclear.

But as long as you wash your hands before touching your face, you should be OK, because viral droplets don’t pass through skin.

Buy a good brand soap : No, the brand or type of soap does not matter.

My coughing neighbour cannot cause infection in me : No. An infected neighbor might sneeze on a railing and if you touched it, you would get it.

Virus particles can cross the glasses : No. There is no evidence that viral particles can go through walls or glass, said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

AC is dangerous : We are more concerned about the dangers posed by common spaces than those posed by vents, provided there is good air circulation in a room.

Dog or cat cannot join me in quarantine : Professor Whittaker, who has studied the spread of coronaviruses in animals and humans, said that he had seen no evidence that people who have the virus could be a danger to their pets

Sex is safe : Kissing could spread it. Though corona viruses are not typically sexually transmitted, it’s too soon to know, the W.H.O. said.

Virus can move freely : A naked virus can’t go anywhere unless it’s hitching a ride with a droplet of mucus or saliva, said Kin-on Kwok, a professor at the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

These mucus and saliva droplets are ejected from the mouth or the nose as we cough, sneeze, laugh, sing, breathe and talk. If they don’t hit something along the way, they typically land on the floor or the ground. When the virus becomes suspended in droplets smaller than five micrometres — known as aerosols — it can stay suspended for about a half-hour.

Face to face eating is safe : No, to gain access to your cells, the viral droplets must enter through the eyes, the nose or the mouth. Sneezing and coughing are most likely the primary forms of transmission. Talking loudly face-to-face or sharing a meal with someone could pose a risk.

If you can smell what someone had for lunch — garlic, curry, etc. — you are inhaling what they are breathing out, including any virus in their breath. The virus is smart, it makes the nose loose the small, so to experience the smell you inhale deeply.

There are no predictors of transmission : There are four factors that likely play a role: how close you get; how long you are near the person; whether that person projects viral droplets on you; and how much you touch your face.

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