COVID-19 Blog - 03/23/20

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Tung Nguyen, MD
Professor of Medicine, University of California San Francisco (UCSF)
President, PIVOT-The Progressive Vietnamese American Association

If you do not have COVID-19, what should you do?

The most important thing to do is to protect yourself and protect everyone you love.

·         If your state or city has a “shelter in place” policy, you should stay at home. This keeps you from getting infected and passing it on to others. Even if there is no such policy, stay home. This GIF diagram explains how your staying at home can save thousands of people.

·         Have only one person, preferably the healthiest, leave the house for necessities only—buying food and getting medicines. If you need to go outside for exercise, do it away from crowds.

·         If you do go outside:

  • Make sure you are at least 6 feet away from anyone else. If someone gets too close to you, move away.

  • Be careful of touching objects, because the COVID-19 virus may stay in the air for 3 hours, cardboard for 24 hours, and plastic for 72 hours.  

    • handwashing with soap and water for 20 seconds is fine.

    • Use hand sanitizers when you are out and don’t have access to soap and water. You can make your own hand sanitizer.

    • Clean commonly touched objects like tables, doorknobs, light switches, handles, desks, toilets, faucets, and sinks using regular household disinfectant cleaners. Use gloves when cleaning.

      • Any EPA-registered household disinfectant, alcohol solution with at least 70% alcohol, or diluted bleach should be fine. Make the bleach solution with 5 tablespoons (1/3 cup) with 1 gallon of water. Do not mix bleach with ammonia.

·         Wearing a surgical (soft) mask is not helpful because it cannot stop the COVID-19 virus from getting through to your nose and mouth. The mask may give you false confidence.

·         Buying a lot of things that you don’t need right away is called “hoarding,” which harms not only others but also you. If everyone hoards, the supplies are not available where and when they are needed, which makes everything worse, and then you won’t have what you need when you need it.

  • For example, N95 masks do work, but there is a shortage and they should be reserve for healthcare workers, who need them to take care of sick patients and protect themselves. If you use an N95 mask when you feel fine, you could be making a doctor sick who cannot take care of you later.

·         Remember that this is an extremely stressful time for everyone, including you. Try to do  things that keep you in a good mood, whether it is talking to your family and friends on the phone or through social media, exercising, meditating, reading, et cetera.