How to Improve Your Odds against the Virus

Ray Access may not be healthcare professionals, but we specialize in writing website content for a variety of medical practices. Our writers and editors research the latest developments in the medical field for our clients. We find up-to-date medical information sometimes before they’re in the mainstream. So this advice constitutes the best and latest news available, which you’re encouraged to confirm.

Doctors now know the coronavirus is a respiratory virus that settles in your lungs. It either causes or enables pneumonia, which may be fatal for virus sufferers. The virus creates thick mucus, which then solidifies. Narrower walls in your respiratory passages block the airways to your lungs and eventually impairs the lungs themselves.

10 Ways to Protect Yourself from the Coronavirus

Here’s a list of 10 things you can do to protect yourself from the virus or keep it from getting worse:

1. Drink warm or hot liquids, such as coffee, teas, soups and warm water. Sip warm water every 20 minutes during the day. This washes the virus, if present, from your mouth into your stomach, where the acids neutralize it. Also, avoid eating or drinking cold things whenever possible.
    
2. Wash your hands every half hour. Yes, every 30 minutes. Use soap that foams with water. Scrub for at least 20 seconds — or the time it takes you to sing the Happy Birthday song.
    
3. Gargle an antiseptic liquid in warm water every day. You can find oral antiseptics in over-the-counter strength at your local pharmacy. They’re not expensive. Or try lemon juice, salt water or vinegar.
    
4. Wash yourself and your clothes often. Soap and detergent neutralize the virus; you don’t need bleach. The virus apparently attaches easily to hair and clothes, as well as skin. If possible, take a shower or bath, using soap, immediately whenever you come in from outside. Do not sit down, do not throw your clothes on the bed or carpet. Wash your clothes every day, especially after leaving the house. If you can’t do that, keep the clothes worn outside separate from the other clothes you wash.
    
5. Clean metallic surfaces every day. The virus has been known to survive on these surfaces for up to nine days. That includes door handles, countertops and the surfaces of cars, walls, desks … any metal surface you may touch. Keep them clean and wipe them down often, even daily. When you’re out of the house, avoid touching these surfaces directly or wear gloves.
    
6. Don’t smoke. Anything that impacts your respiratory system makes you more susceptible to a viral infection. And if you can go without cigarettes for the duration of the coronavirus outbreak, you may be able to quit permanently, which makes you less susceptible in the future, as well.
    
7. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Usually, promoting a healthful diet is good advice any time. Now, during the coronavirus pandemic, eating fresh fruit and vegetables increases your zinc levels, which strengthens your immune system.
    
8. Be aggressive in treating a sore throat. The virus most often enters your body via your throat. Your sore throat may be caused by the virus. It can remain there for three or four days before making its way to your lungs.
    
9. Maintain social distancing. The virus spreads through person-to-person contact (even if you’re less than six feet apart, since the virus hangs in the air for several hours), by hovering in the air and through contact with an infected surface. Besides washing your hands often, don’t touch your face.
    
10. Stay at home except for trips you need to make: for food, exercise and medical necessities. The less interaction you have with others, the better your chances of avoiding COVID-19. Stay safe!

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