Battle sickness with steam
These are the main ways that influenza and colds spread:
• By direct transmission (when an infected person sneezes mucus directly into the eyes, nose or mouth of another person);
• The airborne route (when someone inhales the aerosols produced by an infected person coughing, sneezing or spitting);
• Through hand-to-eye, hand-to-nose, or hand-to-mouth transmission, either from contaminated surfaces or from direct personal contact such as a handshake.
Whichever way you get it, influenza and cold viruses have an incubation period (lapse of time from exposure to pathogen to the appearance of symptoms) of 18 to 72 hours, and infect the epithelial cells of the respiratory tract, starting in the nose.
Flu and cold viruses — and apparently the coronavirus — are susceptible to heat. It must be at least 170 degrees.
According to Professor Wang Linfa, director for the program in emerging infectious diseases at the Duke-NUS Medical School, exposing the coronavirus to heat breaks the corona structure, rendering the virus impotent and unable to infect its host. See straitstimes.com/singapore/health/coronavirus-how-disinfectants-and-hot-humid-weather-can-keep-virus-away.
One way to do this is to boil a pot of water, turn the heat off, wait a few minutes, then carefully breathe the steam. Use your common sense: if it feels too hot, wait another minute. When it is comfortable but still hot, take slow, deep breaths. Do it once a day, but if around children or lots of sneezing and coughing, increase up to twice a day.
Ruta Jordans, Kapa‘a
Source: The Garden Island
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