How to Prep Your Home for Flu Season 2020
Flu season in 2020 is shaping up to be a tough one. Between this year’s flu and the continued battle with COVID-19, it’s never been more important to keep your home and your family safe from infection.
If you’ve never taken the time to flu-proof your home in autumn, now is the time to learn. Luckily, it’s easy to do. It can even be a fun activity (and a great learning experience) for the kids.
Here’s what you can do to protect your home from the sniffles, the shakes, and COVID-19 this flu season.
Disinfect Smarter
Developing a habit of disinfecting counters, doorknobs, bathrooms, and other surfaces is crucial to stopping the spread of viruses. But it can be difficult for families to do.
For one, kids are constantly touching everything and spreading germs, making disinfecting seem like a lost cause.
And for families with young children, it’s not safe to cover everything with harmful chemicals multiple times a day.
But this doesn’t mean you should give up disinfecting. It just means you need to do it smarter.
Instead of using gallons of bleach and disinfectant, try cleaning with UV light.
UV light is just as effective at killing germs as liquid disinfectants, and it’s much safer. It kills 99.99% of bacteria, viruses, mold, fungus, allergens, and other microbial life, and it leaves no residue or chemicals behind.
You can get a UV light disinfectant wand for the cost of the supplies currently in your cleaning cabinet. To use it, just shine its light on any surface or object (it’s as easy as using a flashlight!).
The Allume UV-C wand by Violet Healthcare is one of the best UV light wands for families. IT has 16 UV bulbs for ultra-fast disinfection rates, it folds up into a neat portable baton, and it has safety features built-in to keep the light from shining in anyone’s eyes.
Allume can clean a lot more than your liquid cleaners, and it can do it a lot faster. It’s perfect for disinfecting:
- Countertops
- Bathrooms
- Doorknobs
- Clothing
- Fresh produce
- Mail and package deliveries
- Public transport seating
- Elevator buttons
- Much more
The only thing Allume shouldn’t be used on is your skin. And even then, a little exposure is harmless (UV light is the same type of light that comes from the sun), which is more than can be said for a lot of the cleaners under your sink!
Violet Healthcare has cut the price of Allume by 50% to help families during the pandemic. Get yours now at violethealthcare.com.
Do a Healthy Pantry Restock
Right now, your pantry is probably full of sports drinks, fruit gummies, chocolate granola bars, and summer BBQ snacks. While these are perfect for the active summertime, they won’t give your immune system the boost it needs in flu season.
Rethink your pantry and stock for the season before it’s too late. Replace those fruit gummies with vitamin chews and the cheese puffs with veggie chips. Everything you can do early on to boost vitamin intake will make it easier for your family to fight off infection.
Here are some of the best flu season items for your pantry:
- Lentils
- Wholegrain rice and pasta
- Dried fruit and nuts
- Potatoes, onions, and garlic
- Oatmeal
- Herbal tea
- Canned veggies
- Broth and bullion
- Vitamins
And don’t forget to eat a lot of fresh food too. Autumn is the harvest season, so stock up on leafy greens, tomatoes, corn, and squash!
Practice Handwashing with Fingerpaint
Handwashing can be a drag for kids, especially when parents and teachers are ordering them to do it every day. But what kids don’t always grasp is that handwashing is the #1 way to avoid getting sick—if you do it right. And that includes the flu and COVID-19.
Instead of dragging them to the bathroom for a refresher course in hand hygiene, why not make it fun with some fingerpaint?
Mock handwashing with fingerpaint is a great way to show kids (and adults!) how much scrubbing they need to do to get their hands clean.
Start by putting a small dab of paint on one hand and letting them rub it all over their hands, pretending its soap.
They’ll easily see how good they are handwashing when you bring attention to the unpainted parts of their hands between their fingers and near their wrists.
Practice a few times until everyone gets it right. And don’t forget to make some Thanksgiving turkey handprints for fun while you’re at it!
Load up on PPE
This flu season isn’t like the others. The combination of the flu and COVID-19 means you’ll have to do a little more stocking up, and that includes buying PPE such as masks, face shields, and gloves.
We just don’t know how bad things might get once flu season hits in full swing, and you don’t want to be caught without protective gear if it becomes scarce again.
Don’t just think about protecting yourself from infection from outside the home. You also need to prepare for the possibility that a family member might get sick. If this happens, you want to have the necessary equipment to protect the others in the household from catching it too.
Get Vaccinated
The best way to fight the flu is to get vaccinated as early as possible and to make sure everyone in your family gets vaccinated. Getting the flu vaccine can cut your chances of infection by up to 60%.
It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s smart. While it’s certainly not fun for little ones, it’s nothing a trip to the ice cream shop can’t fix.
Although, it’s important to remember that you can still get the flu even if you’ve been vaccinated and that there is not yet a vaccine for COVID-19. So, you should do everything you can to maintain a healthy and germ-free household whether you get a flu vaccine or not.
Say Shoo to The Flu
In the end, keeping your house flu and COVID-19-free this season comes down to preparation and education.
Getting the supplies you need is the easy part. Take a moment (maybe now?) to order an Allume UV-C wand and stock up on PPE while it’s in full supply. During your next trip to the grocery store, keep your healthy pantry in mind.
But also make sure to teach everyone in your home the importance of staying healthy this year. A little refresher on handwashing, mask-wearing, and social distancing can’t hurt. It’s something we all need to be reminded of now and again.
By staying active and prepared, you’ll breeze through this flu season with a household of healthy and happy faces.
I wanna say This is very well informative article. there is difference between using the term of “sterilization” & “disinfection” Sterilization: the process of killing any bacteria or microorganisms by use of dry heat, high pressure steam or UV light.
Disinfection l: the process of eliminating or reducing harmful microorganisms especially with a chemical,
I totally agree that cleaning and disinfecting around the house can be difficult for families. We live in a spacious single-family home but we can’t help but be worried for our health when we learned that one of our aunts we live with is COVID-positive. It would be better to suggest to our parents to hire disinfecting services that can help prevent the spread of an infectious disease.