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Hi everyone, it’s Inés and welcome back to Draw Curiosity!
Yes, it’s another informational coronavirus video. I think it’s abundantly clear from
the data that we have that we have a pandemic in our hands-
-and many countries are definitely starting to register double and triple and in some
cases even quadruple digits of new cases per day-
-which to me is a sign of community spread
and exponential growth which is characteristic to an uncontained pandemic. Personally I think
many governments have reacted, rather than actually being proactive, with regards to
the coronavirus. And all of this is in spite of having had a month’s heads up to see
how things actually went down in China and now in Italy and Iran, and seeing what measures
could have been taken to contain and slow the spread of the virus.
That being said, I know this sounds quite dire and I sound pretty down, but I would
urge everyone to be alert and to take good precautions, but without panicking either,
because - after all, anxiety helps no one other than make things worse! I would know
- I have OCD!
In this video, I want to address how to safely put on and take off a facemask, how to wash
your hands and how to put on hand sanitiser. It may seem like an extremely basic and unnecessary
video, but I know that many of us, including myself quite honestly - we’re not perfect
at doing all of these things. We touch lots of things in our environment, we then go on
to touch our faces and honestly we probably don’t wash our hands as well as we should,
or apply hand sanitiser as regularly as we should. We’re very good at knowing these
things in theory but it’s good to also have them in practice. And also of course, many
of us might not have much experience wearing facemasks. So I think a little review of the
science and the how-tos just might be worth it. Again, like the previous video, you can
find the time-codes on screen, as well as in the pinned comment and the description.
I definitely urge you to check the pinned comment just in case there are any possible
corrections as well as links to primary literature. After all, this is a developing story and
there is constantly science coming out all the time! In fact, I’m concerned that as
I put this video out, some things might have already changed. Likewise, I already made
a video talking about the science of the coronavirus and frequently asked questions, so if you
want a comprehensive overview, you can watch that there. It’s also got all of the time
codes, so you can have an idea of what questions you can ask there!
So without further ado, let’s talk about how to wash your hands, how to hand sanitise
them, and how to wear face masks!
[Draw Curiosity introduction]
Firstly, facemasks! I’ve seen a lot of conflicting advice on facemasks, from which ones should
be worn to whether they should even be worn at all. Now personally in my opinion, the
two most troubling claims are the following:
One, that only sick people should wear facemasks; and two, that facemasks will make you more
likely to contract the virus than not wearing them.
[Sigh]
[Also sigh]
Firstly, wearing a facemask does offer a layer of protection from droplet infection via the
nose and oral mucosa. It won’t protect your eyes, and it might not protect you from aerosolized
particles, but it does protect from droplet infection. And for sick people wearing a surgical
facemask, it prevents the droplets from exiting the mask and reaching other people. So technically,
yes, if sick people wore facemasks then no one else would necessarily be required to
wear them.
However, as we know, people with the coronavirus can still shed and transmit the virus onto
other people whilst they're in that presymptomatic phase, or asymptomatic if they don’t develop
COVID-19 at all. This can last for up to at least two weeks, with a median duration of
5 days. Therefore, if only people exhibiting obvious symptoms of COVID-19 were to wear
facemasks, asymptomatic and presymptomatic cases would still be able to spread the virus
onto susceptible people who aren’t wearing facemasks either. So this measure isn’t
really one that works very easily in the current situation for COVID-19. Likewise, it just
blatantly isn’t true that facemasks make you more likely to contract the virus, but
it’s true that it doesn’t offer full protection either. So you shouldn’t be convinced or
lulled into a false sense of security!
A facemask covers your oral and nasal mucosa, but not necessarily your eyes. Likewise, if
you haven’t fitted it properly to your face, then it might not protect you as well as you
intend. What is most important, I would say, is to avoid touching your face whilst wearing
the mask, or taking the mask off improperly, ‘cause then that would defeat the whole
point of wearing the facemask in the first place. I’m also aware that there are mask
shortages in general, and quite honestly I suspect the healthcare advice that has been
doled out officially might be more to do with this - so at the same time, I’d probably
only recommend wearing disposable masks if you are likely to be in close contact with
large groups of people of unknown status, such as spending a long time on public transport,
airports, large gatherings or going to the doctor’s or to a hospital, and honestly
I recommend avoiding all of that entirely if you can. Keep a safe distance of at least
1 meter from people where possible when you’re not wearing a mask.
I’m now going to demonstrate here how to wear and remove a facemask as safely as possible.
It’s going to be a surgical facemask because firstly, I don’t own an N95, but secondly,
an N95 allows for particles exhaled by the wearer to be shed outside the mask - so if
you had the virus, regardless of whether you were asymptomatic or not, the viral particles
would be shed and flow out and basically defeat the whole purpose of wearing a mask to contain
the virus.
Firstly, you want to make sure the mask is the right way round and the right way up.
If it’s a two-toned mask, the blue is the outer side, the outer side has pleats going
downwards, and the inner side should have pleats going upwards, with the aluminium band
indicating the top of the mask.
The pleats pointing downwards actually prevents water from pooling or entering the mask, whereas
the pleats that point upwards will trap and stop your own saliva and mucus from spreading
if you happen to cough, or sneeze or drool behind the mask. In between the inner and
the outer layer of a surgical mask, there is a filter and that filter prevents particles
from filtering in either direction, thus containing what is on either side.
To put it on, firstly you must put the metal wire over the bridge of your nose, and then
place the earloops around your ears. Please make sure the metal wire is folded to form
a secure closure over your face. If there’s any gaps, then droplets can potentially enter
through there, and therefore it sort of renders your use of the mask pointless.
When it’s time to remove the mask, don’t touch the front of the mask because it could
potentially have viral particles. So instead, make sure you’re removing the earloops carefully,
and dispose of the mask. Make sure you sanitise your hands appropriately afterwards, so even
if you do happen to touch the mask, you are still ensuring that none of those particles
find their way to your mucosa.
Obviously, the best course of action is for you to go wash your hands. So now let’s
talk about hand sanitisation. The most likely way to contract this virus, as well as through
droplet infection, is by touching a contaminated surface with your hands and then later touching
your face with the contaminated hand. The truth is, we are constantly touching things
in our environment whether we are aware of it or not, and we certainly touch our faces
very often whether absent-mindedly or not - so whilst we should probably make an active
effort to not touch our faces, it is also worth upping our hand hygiene so at least
when we do poke our faces, our hands at least will be clean.
So the best way to sanitise your hands is definitely to wash them. It feels a bit patronising
of me to do a tutorial on how to wash your hands, but I think it’s a good idea to have
a reminder on how to do it so thoroughly just to be safe. Because it’s very easy to do
a very quick handwash that might not be very effective! Two pieces of advice I’ve heard,
and which I really like: is firstly, the duration of your handwash should be approximately two
times the Happy Birthday To You song; and secondly, it should be as thorough as if you
had just chopped some extremely hot chili peppers and then wiped your hands all over
them, but then you need to go and remove some contact lenses with them. The handwashing
should look something like this:
Firstly, if it is a public bathroom, perhaps have a couple of tissues ready in advance.
Open the tap, wet your hands, and apply enough soap. Then, make sure your soaping covers
the palms of your hands,
the ridges between your fingers,
your knuckles,
don’t forget about your thumbs,
and make sure your wrists are taken care of as well - maybe reconsider
wearing tight bracelets and watches for time being. Cause they can also trap particles
underneath! Close the tap with an elbow or your tissue paper to avoid touching it, dispose
of the tissue and exit the bathroom, preferably without using your hands.
Now, I understand that washing hands is not always a possibility! You might be outside,
and there’s no sink or there’s no soap. And in which case, I would recommend carrying
and using hand sanitiser with at least 60% alcohol content. Again, as with facemasks,
there has been conflicting advice with regards to how effective hand sanitiser is. Strictly
speaking, no studies have been carried out on the effectiveness of hand sanitiser with
the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but there are studies that look at the efficacy of hand sanitisers
and disinfectants on reducing the infectivity of the SARS coronavirus, and the results are
loud and clear: rubbing alcohol actually works really well on enveloped viruses such as the
coronavirus, and exposures of 30 to 60 seconds can dehydrate the virus. I should say, the
vast majority of studies I’ve found used higher concentrations of ethanol, of 75% and
above, in their hand sanitisers, but I was able to find a study citing unpublished data
that used a 60% ethanol hand sanitising gel which displayed the same level of reduction,
so provided the exposure is sufficient on the skin, it should be effective at drying
out any potential viral particles.
Other small measures you can take are taking off your shoes when entering the house, to
avoid spreading dirt over the floor, and also frequently disinfect surfaces at home - particularly
those places that you commonly touch. Think doorknobs, keyboards, keys, your phone, handrails,
et cetera. An easy way might be to just lead a normal day in your life, write down all
the objects you touch - and then assess from there what is worth wiping down most often.
Dettol wipes and bleach should be your friend in this instance, and bleach definitely works
at getting rid of the coronavirus!
I really hope this video is helpful, it might be annoying to implement some of these measures
if you’re not used to doing so, but honestly I think it’s worth it to reduce the rate
of transmission of this virus and this COVID-19 disease and also to improve one’s personal
hygiene. And whilst a change in behaviour in oneself can seem alarming and it might
make you worry, again, try not to panic - these are very easy precautions to make that can
actually make a really big difference if done properly, and sadly worrying for the sake
of worrying won’t actually help anyone, but being aware and alert can!
Now, if you’re planning to stay at home a bit more, whether it be for quarantine,
self-isolation or social distancing, but you aren’t sure of what to do - you might be
interested in today’s sponsor, which is: CuriosityStream!
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and Creation, which is also conveniently available in English, Spanish and Portuguese and it
actually covers the Zika epidemic from 2016. If you’re not feeling viruses, then I’m
just going to recommend browsing any David Attenborough - the latest one I’ve enjoyed
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Thank you to all of my wonderful Patreons on Patreon for supporting Draw Curiosity -
[Music: Thastor & Cryosleepkitten]
- and as always, thank you so much for watching me, and I’ll see you in the next one! Bye!
And stay healthy :)
And clean.
And [...] disinfectant.
[Music: Thastor & Cryosleepkitten]
[Subtitled by {your name} into {language}]