It’s not always easy to keep your family safe at home because there are so many different ways your kids can get injured. However, you don’t have to live in fear of those dangers that lurk around every corner; there are steps you can take right now to protect your loved ones from them. Here are seven simple ways to safeguard your family at home and keep your home COVID-safe.
*This is a collaborative post.
*This is a collaborative post.Emphasize on Personal Hygiene
You need to ask yourself, are you getting the most out of your hygiene systems? If not, it’s time to do something about it, and the below tips can help.
Wash your hands: Washing hands is a simple and effective way to avoid illness. Wash with soap for 20 seconds or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, especially after using the bathroom, before eating food, and during the cold season when you’re around people with the flu. Also, wash your hands after touching pets or wildlife such as bats, birds, turtles, and raccoons – which can carry rabies virus – and if you’ve handled something dirty.
Don’t share drinks with others: It may sound silly, but this is one of the simplest ways to make sure germs don’t spread. People often share drinks, but this could lead to sharing germs. So, avoid swapping straws or any other form of sharing.
Wash fruits and vegetables: Wash produce thoroughly with cold water; even though you may not be eating it straight away, there still might be bacteria present, which can cause illness if consumed later. Additionally, wash your hands with soap after washing fruit/vegetables as they are a prime spot for contamination.
Keep surfaces clean: Never eat off of dirty plates or countertops because dirt and bacteria can get lodged in those crevices where you’re less likely to see them. Instead, clean all kitchen counters and tables before preparing food by wiping them down with a bleach-based disinfectant. If you don’t have these surface cleaners handy, make them with some soap and water or vinegar/baking soda.
If it’s not clean – throw it out: Don’t eat food that has been left unrefrigerated for more than two hours. This includes raw meat, eggs, any dairy products including milk and cheese, and fruits like avocados, which can contain salmonella bacteria. Also, don’t leave cooked foods out of the refrigerator for longer than one hour; if they’re at room temperature rather than cold, be sure to cover them so other people will know not to eat them.
Create a Hand-Washing Rule
One of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce your family’s risk for food-borne illness is by establishing a hand-washing rule. This is also important when keeping COVID-safe. Of course, this can be difficult with young children who are old enough to get themselves into trouble (which sometimes includes grabbing things from the counter!), so you must establish some ground rules first. It’d be helpful if every member in your household agrees on what these guidelines are – whether it’s washing hands before eating or after using the bathroom, limiting certain foods during any point in their production process, or setting up designated areas for preparing raw ingredients.
Conduct Frequent and Random Covid-19 Tests
You can do this by taking a test twice per day to find any potential changes as soon as possible after they occur. Remember that the virus is constantly changing, so it’s important to take these tests often enough to catch new mutations before they become widespread. Be sure you have an emergency plan for your family at home if you are too ill with covid-19 symptoms or otherwise unable to care for them. Outbreaks happen quickly, so you should plan for the worst and hope for the best to keep COVID-safe.
Get Everyone Vaccinated
When it comes to safeguarding your family, getting everyone vaccinated is a simple way to protect them from the many vaccine-preventable diseases. Not only does this help you stay safe, but it also helps other people around you avoid catching any infections too. Children should receive vaccines at certain ages before entering school or daycare so parents can feel confident about bringing their kids into environments with other children. Getting vaccinated can help keep people COVID-safe.
Improve on Your Hygiene Systems
The most important step you can take to protect your family at home is to improve your hygiene systems (i.e., handwashing habits). This might seem like an obvious tip, but when soap and water aren’t readily available or if someone doesn’t know how to wash their hands properly, germs can thrive. In addition, children are especially at risk because of their limited understanding of what washing hands entail, and they are more likely to put their dirty hands in their mouths.
It’s a good idea to teach kids how and when they should wash their hands, too. They should be encouraged or reminded every time before eating/preparing food, after using the toilet, after blowing nose, coughing or sneezing into handkerchiefs (or tissues), after handling pets, and before cooking anything.
Limit Eating Out
Speaking of food, you can reduce your family’s exposure to contaminants by limiting eating out. For example, most restaurants use tap water for cooking and preparing sauces that are poured over or mixed into the dishes they serve. Unfortunately, this means if an eatery near you has contaminated tap water (or worse yet, a chemical spill), it could end up on your plates!
Even non-chain franchises like Chipotle have been implicated in recent outbreaks because their ingredients come from all sorts of suppliers; who knows where those farms get their water? And even when there isn’t any bad luck with locally sourced produce, industrial farm animals may be subject to heavy doses of antibiotics during growth, finding their way into the meat supply.
Provide Sufficient Supply of Masks and Sanitizers
To make sure that your family is as safe and healthy as they can be, it’s essential to understand how you will keep them protected and COVID-safe. This includes having enough masks for each person in the household, sanitizers or disinfectants near hand-washing stations, and making sure everyone takes their medication if prescribed by a doctor. In addition, the flu virus can live on surfaces like doorknobs, so always remember what Dr. Mary Hayden says: “You should wash hands all the time!”
To wrap up, don’t forget that the best choices a family can make are those where everyone has input. If you’re not sure what to do for your home’s safety, talk things over with each other and get advice from professionals in the field. You’ll find this article helpful as it provides many great tips on keeping your loved ones safe at home.
What tips do you have to keep COVID-safe? Let me know in the comments below.
*Disclaimer – This is a collaborative post. This post has been pre-written.
