Last Updated on November 28, 2022 by Isabella EcheverrÃa
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is slowing down in many parts of the world. But it is not entirely gone. After seeing how several vaccine candidates are progressing in their trials and what type of results they promise in the future, it appears we may have to deal with the pandemic for a while.
With this in mind, we must get used to the safety practices suggested by top health experts. This includes social distancing, mask-wearing, and effective hand hygiene.
Adapting these practices into our everyday lives can be tricky, to say the least. This not only applies to maintaining a distance of 2 meters from others and wearing a mask during outdoor trips but also using hand sanitizer.
- Why Should You Use Hand Sanitizer?
- 1. Use It Before Eating Food
- 2. Use It in Your Own Office
- 3. Use It After a Grocery Run
- 4. Use It After a Food Pickup
- 5. Use It During a Hike
- 6. Use It After Visiting the Doctor
- 7. Use It While Shopping for Clothes
- 8. Use It While Being Near Someone Who Is Sick
- 9. Use It After a Bathroom Trip
- 10. Use It After Handling the Trash
Why Should You Use Hand Sanitizer?
COVID-19 mainly spreads through human-to-human transmission. But we shouldn’t completely eradicate the chance of surface transmission. This is why hand hygiene has become a critical requirement during the novel coronavirus.
According to many sources, you should use a sanitizer to clean your hands when you are unable to wash them with soap and water. This helps you deactivate microorganisms that may have landed on your hands and fingers while touching nearby surfaces or inadvertently coming in contact with an infected person.
To help you integrate the use of this essential hygiene product in your everyday life, here’s a list of 10 situations where you should use a sanitizer.
1. Use It Before Eating Food
No matter where you are, make sure to clean your hands before eating. If soap and water are not available, get your hands on a bottle of sanitizer. This ensures that you are not accidentally ingesting any disease-inducing bacteria, germs, or viruses.
This applies whether you are having a sandwich in the park, a burrito on your desk, or a burger in a restaurant. This is perhaps one of the most important things that you need to keep in mind in regard to using hand sanitizer.
2. Use It in Your Own Office
During COVID-19, washing your hands frequently may prove to be a hassle at a desk job, especially if you have to manage your breaks or frequently have to entertain phone calls and emails. In such a situation, you can easily use a sanitizer for effective hand hygiene.
The process doesn’t ask much from you. Every hour or two, it just requires that you rub the sanitizer over your hands until the solution runs dry. It couldn’t get any easier, could it?
3. Use It After a Grocery Run
When you are out on a grocery run, you are bound to touch countless items during your trip. From handling shopping carts to grabbing juice boxes, you frequently run the risk of catching virus-inducing organisms on your hands.
But you cannot often run to the public bathroom in the middle of your shopping just to wash your hands. The solution is simple: you can break out your bottle of sanitizer to keep your hands safe from some of the most dangerous microorganisms.
4. Use It After a Food Pickup
If you are picking up your food from the restaurant, it’s essential that you keep effective hand hygiene in mind. This is especially true if you are handling cash or physical payment cards to complete your transaction.
Instead of running to get soap and water from the restaurant’s bathroom and compromising your piping hot meal, you can use a hand sanitizer to keep germs and viruses at bay. This ensures that you can keep your hands clean without having to fret yourself.
5. Use It During a Hike
Between the closure of gyms and the focus on baking, maintaining your fitness during COVID-19 is one of the most difficult things to accomplish. Thankfully, going on a hike by yourself or doing a socially-distanced version with a friend can help you stay in shape and maintain your health.
But when you do so, make sure that you keep a bottle of sanitizer with you. This simple act ensures that when you rest on a public bench or touch railings over any bridges along the way, you are not putting your safety at risk by avoiding hand hygiene.
6. Use It After Visiting the Doctor
During the novel coronavirus outbreak, many doctors are shifting to telehealth for regular consultations. But others still need to do physical checkups to ensure their patients’ health. If your healthcare professional falls in the latter category, you need to be attentive to your hand hygiene.
Hospitals and clinics usually have sanitizer available within their facility, which offers easy accessibility. But ensure you do not depend on that assumption and instead take a bottle of hand sanitizer with you. You can use it right before leaving the facility.
7. Use It While Shopping for Clothes
Online shopping has ensured that you don’t have to go through a perilous journey during COVID-19 to get yourself new threads. But if you are buying an essential item that can’t be purchased without a personal fitting, you need to head to a store.
When you go into trial rooms and make your selection from the shelves, don’t forget to keep your sanitizer bottle handy with you. This ensures that you don’t compromise your safety in exchange for some much-needed style.
8. Use It While Being Near Someone Who Is Sick
If you are caring for someone who’s sick, you need to make sure to clean your hands before you see them and after you leave them. If you have accidentally come in contact with someone who’s visibly ill, you should also ensure to sanitize your hands right afterward.
This is a standard practice that you should follow anyway. But it is more important than ever in the age of COVID-19. This ensures that you aren’t spreading any diseases to the immunocompromised or catching any infections in return.
9. Use It After a Bathroom Trip
If you have just used a bathroom where soap and water aren’t available, you should immediately turn to a hand sanitizer instead. This ensures that you are able to clean your hands of most microorganisms that can cause and spread infections.
This also applies if you have changed the diaper of your child or helped them use the bathroom. This highly crucial practice keeps you away from unnecessary infections and helps you and your family stay healthy.
10. Use It After Handling the Trash
This particular aspect seems like a no-brainer. But many individuals skip it out of not thinking much about it. With that being said, it doesn’t make it any less important.
You should always wash your hands after handling trash at home. But if for some reason you are unable to do so, make sure that you are cleaning your hands with a sanitizer after coming in contact with garbage. This can be relevant in situations where you are discarding your pet’s waste into a public trash can.
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Meet Kourtney, a fashion and beauty enthusiast who tells stories through style. To her, clothing is a language, and every accessory adds punctuation to her narrative. Kourtney explores vintage fashion markets on weekends, blending classic with contemporary to create a signature style that reflects her vibrant personality. Beyond aesthetics, she's a passionate advocate for body positivity and inclusivity in fashion, celebrating diversity to ensure everyone feels seen and embraced.
