March 23

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How to wash your hands and why you should do it in the age of novel coronavirus

By campuschiropractic

March 23, 2020


Since the end of 2019 a novel coronavirus crossed from animal to human in China and has spread rapidly around the world to reshape history. While China has reached a point of control over the virus, most of the rest of the world is still coming to grips with it. In the end it seems your personal individual effort makes a difference to how history is being made now which may not be the case for most other things in the wider country such as the economy, sport etc. Social distancing and hand washing are two of the bigger factors emphasised by the government and we will focus on the later for this post.

Once a virus enters your eyes, nose or mouth it has found an easy way to access your cells for its replication. So this is why wearing a mask can be beneficial but more so why we should avoid touching the eyes, nose and mouth with our hands. Our hands are the most likely part of us to touch somewhere that the virus is located and then transfer it to us. Research by the New England Journal of Medicine (van Doremalen N, et al March 17, 2020) showed that the virus can persist on surfaces. They found the length of time needed before there was no viable amount of virus was measured on copper was after 4 hours, 24 hours on cardboard and 72 hours on plastic and metal. The research also found the virus stayed airborne for 3 hours at least which is why masks can help when worn widely within a population.

See the video below on how to wash that virus off your hands to help prevent you acquiring it from there.

So you know how to was the virus off your hands but is it really so necessary to do it? This video below entertainingly shows how easily and how far viruses and bacteria can spread by your hands.

campuschiropractic

About the author

Campus Chiropractic & Wellness is as natural health clinic on the campus of the University of Sydney. The main services are chiropractic & remedial massage. Its current location was established in 2011 after Dr Jeremy Hammond, chiropractor, had already provided chiropractic on campus for 11 years.

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