Coronavirus: Ventilate your car and home to reduce risk of infection

This is a tip Prof Wang said he picked up from social media: Get a pen with a cap and remove the ink cartridge before using it. After using it, cap it and put it in your bag.

If someone used the lift 30 seconds or a minute before you, there is a “low chance” of getting an infection from breathing in the air, but a much higher chance of getting it from touching the lift buttons, he said.

If you do not have a pen, use a piece of tissue and throw it away.

Prof Wang said he saw a photo on social media that showed a tissue box being placed at a lift lobby in a building in China for people to do exactly that.

Keep shared spaces well-ventilated to protect yourself, assuming that there is a risk of infection in these places.

“Let the (circulating) air blow the virus out into the open and the droplet will settle onto the ground and (the virus will) die off,” said Prof Wang.

This is why people should ventilate their cars if they ferried a passenger who may have the infection. If this passenger coughed in the car and you then ventilate it for two to three minutes, you should get enough circulation to clear the air.

The droplets cannot stay in the air for very long if it is a fully ventilated environment, he said.

People also need to switch off the air-conditioner, turn on the fan and get fresh air to reduce the chances of getting infected by the novel coronavirus.

Experts suggest that another way to reduce the spread of diseases is to keep windows and doors open to ventilate the rooms.

The World Health Organisation, in a document outlining how to prevent the coronavirus from infecting people, said suspected cases should be kept in well-ventilated rooms.

Professor Wang Linfa, director for the programme in emerging infectious diseases at the Duke-NUS Medical School, said ultra-violet rays and heat from the sun could kill the virus.

“If you can stay under the sun for a while, it would be good,” he added. “Vitamin D can also boost the immune system.”

At the end of the day, what is most important is still hand hygiene, and you do have to wash your hands frequently and properly, experts said.

Do this and protect your face, said infectious disease expert Leong Hoe Nam.

“The virus, even if it is on my hands, cannot penetrate through my intact skin,” Dr Leong said.

“But the virus can go to my eyes through my contaminated hands. Hence, the mantra: My face is sacred. Protect the face, and it helps.”

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This article was first published in The Straits Times.