Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Self-quarantine if you’re sick. And get information from reliable sources.
A local public health expert offered those tips on how best to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Richard Matheny, director ofhealth for the Quinnipiack Valley Health District, shared those tips on the latest episode of The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities’ WNHH Radio program, “The Municipal Voice.” He also discussed some of the underlying facts on this novel coronavirus and the ways that local governments and health departments have been responding.
Matheny said that coronaviruses live mostly in animals, and this most recent iteration had a natural host in bats. The virus mutated “just enough to make it infective to human beings” through an intermediary species, but not much is known about how this happened exactly.
In humans, the virus is spreading through droplet contamination or contaminated surfaces.
Droplet contamination refers to the spread of germs through coughing or sneezing. He suggests that the best information out now is that these droplets have a radius of about six feet, hence the recommended social distancing of six feet.
In Connecticut, the governor has urged any events with over 100 attendees be canceled or postponed. For towns and cities in Connecticut, this has hit St. Patrick’s Day Parades particularly hard, with nearly every scheduled parade up in the air. New Haven’s parade was postponed on March 9, before any cases were announced in the city.
The other main driver of contagion is contaminated surfaces, which are those that droplet contamination has gotten onto. Matheny gives the example of someone coughing in a stairwell and droplets getting onto the hand rail. The germs can survive at a best guess of three days — pending further study — and if you come into contact with them and touch your face, you will probably get sick.
Right now, schools across the state, and especially those that have been visited by those testing positive for coronavirus are being deep cleaned. This includes facilities in Fairfield County, which was the first area to be hit. The State Capitol is going through a four-day deep clean without any positive coronavirus associated with the building as of publication.
“Handwashing is the key to all of this,” he says, not surgical masks.
Masks are not intended to protect you from breathing in the virus, but those that are already sick from spreading the virus through droplet contamination. Even then, those with the virus should be isolating themselves unless they need to go to a doctor.
Matheny’s advice is to make sure that you are washing your hands correctly, and with soap and water. It is the “number-one-go-to” because it physically removes dirt from your hands. Alcohol rubs must be at least 60% alcohol.
Because of how contagious this coronavirus is, it is Matheny’s belief that this will be everywhere soon, and that “we’re just trying to slow it down right now.”
A majority of this work is coming down to local governments, and he turns Ronald Reagan’s old joke — I’m from the government and I’m here to help — on its head.
In this case, “the government is really here to help you,” he says, “and we really want to provide you with rational and accurate information that you may not be getting from social media sources.”
He asks that you check in with your Mayors, First Selectmen and Health Departments and heed their advice and concerns.
For the Quinnipiack Valley Health District, he says “they’re meeting, they’re working out talking points, they’re working with the people they serve. School systems, town hall, meetings in the future, what are you going to do about voting, all of those things are being discussed.”
And until Governor Lamont or President Trump say differently, towns and health districts are on the front lines, who right now are just trying to slow down the spread of the disease so as not to overwhelm our ability to treat those that have coronavirus as has happened in China, Italy, and Iran.
From Matheny’s perspective, it’s good to be concerned, to help each other in a way not to spread it, on the individual level, the family level, and the community level.
The government shutting down large gatherings is just the first step to controlling the spread, but limiting travel may be on the agenda, “I’m sure they’re thinking about it.”
Right now, the Quinnipiack Valley Health District is just trying to be the “calm presence in the room,” trying to disseminate useful, rational, and actionable information to people, and hoping that people trust that this is not a hoax.
Matheny says “this is going to be disruptive to our way of life for quite some time, and we’re slow to come to terms with that.”
He says that in the next week some hard choices are going to have to be made, that bans and temporary closures will all have to be continually evaluated, but ultimately, we must “use reasonable common sense about these things.”
Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. If you’re sick or have been in contact with someone who is, you should self-quarantine. And make sure you’re getting your information from good credible sources like the Center for Disease Control, World Health Organization, or your local leaders and health districts.
