10 Clean Ways to Prevent Infection to Keep Yourself and Others Safe
Preventative measures when dealing with infection are always easier to manage than treating an infection.
But with so much misinformation shared online, it’s important that you get the right information to prevent infection from spreading.
Things to Know First
There are things you need to be aware of when figuring out the best ways for you to prevent an infection from happening. This applies to the current pandemic and other illnesses too.
These include:
- How the disease or infection spreads
- What surfaces it can live on
- What conditions it thrives in
- Whether any other animals can spread it
Once you have the answers to these, you can start to work on how to reduce the risk of getting infected. The details will vary based on the illness you’re dealing with but these are 10 of the best ways to handle most germs and pathogens.
Maintain Social Distancing
Keep a safe distance from others when you go out.
When a virus spreads through droplets in someone’s breath, it can easily infect large numbers of people.
If you keep a safe enough distance that these droplets will fall to the ground, you won’t inhale them, which means they won’t be able to infect you.
This means where possible, keep a distance of 2 meters or 6 feet between yourself and other people around you.
Wear a Face Mask
As viruses spread mainly through droplets in people’s breath, coughs, and sneezes. One of the best ways to stop you from inhaling these droplets or to spread your own is to wear a face mask.
This will help reduce your risk of infection and those around you.
The mask should cover your nose and mouth tightly enough that it captures your breath. It should still be comfortable and loose enough to allow you to breathe freely.
Cover Coughs and Sneezes
If you don’t have a mask or other face-covering available, then catch coughs and sneezes in your sleeve or in a tissue.
These are the 2 ways that infectious droplets can spread the most so catching these will reduce any risk of that happening.
Disinfect Surfaces
Infectious particles can live on surfaces for several hours.
Clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces regularly to minimize the risk of getting infected from a surface. High-touch surfaces include door handles, sink taps, counters, tabletops, and touchscreens.
Not all cleaning agents are equally effective so you want to make sure you know what works and what doesn’t.
The substance you use to clean should be a disinfectant or say antibacterial on the label.
Wash Your Hands Thoroughly
You may not be able to clean aerosol particles from every surface you come in contact with.
If that happens, you can risk infection through particles getting on your hands and then you touching your nose, mouth, or face.
Wash your hands thoroughly on the front and back with antibacterial soap to reduce the risk of contracting an infection from your own hands.
Minimize Physical Contact
While you can control how often you disinfect surfaces and how often you wash your hands, you can’t control how often others are doing it.
They may be as thorough with their hygiene and cleanliness as you are but you can’t be certain so there is risk involved.
To minimize the risk of infection spreading, avoid close physical contact with people outside of your immediate household.
Avoid Large Indoor Groups
When a virus or illness can spread easily between people, avoid being indoors with large groups.
This includes busy shops, restaurants, and most offices and workplaces too.
In large groups, you don’t know who might be infected and droplets from everyone’s breath is in a closed and confined space.
This can increase the risk of inhaling infectious particles and becoming infected yourself or carrying the particles to others.
Reduce Travel
Different areas will have different infection rates and also different local restrictions.
By traveling, you risk going into an area with a higher infection rate and becoming infected yourself.
Also if you are carrying any infectious particles on you or your belongings, even if you’re not infected, you could be exposing other people over a much larger geographical area to a potential infection too.
This is especially true if you are traveling by bus, train, or airplane as you are densely packed into a small, confined space.
Avoid People With Suspected Symptoms
When a virus can easily spread person-to-person, anyone with suspected symptoms should stay at home and isolate themselves.
This isolation period will vary based on where you are and how long until the symptoms go away.
During this time, you should avoid contact with anyone that is self-isolating, where possible.
Bear in mind that in some cases symptoms will take a few days to become noticeable. If you have been in contact with someone who develops symptoms within a few days of meeting you, you should get yourself tested as well.
This will confirm if you’ve been infected and should also self-isolate.
Get Vaccinated
The best way to prevent infection is for your body to develop immunity to it. The best way to develop immunity to it is through getting vaccinated.
Different vaccines work in different ways. Most will involve injecting you with a modified harmless version of a virus or pathogen.
Your body recognizes this as a foreign hazard and creates antibodies to tackle the modified version. That way if your body does come into contact with the more infectious version, it will already know how to respond to it.
Prevent Infection and Stay Safe
With any virus or disease, the best way to prevent getting or spreading infection is to avoid contact with others outside your household as far as possible.
Even when you develop immunity or get vaccinated, particles might still be on other surfaces so you could still be carrying them, which is why keeping a distance, hygiene and cleanliness are all important.
If you’d like to know more about keeping yourself free of infection and feeling healthy, keep reading the rest of our blog.
