Living in times of Covid-19. Lessons from our last 2 months in HK!

As we’re all coping with the recent Covid-19 / coronavirus related changes to our lives, thought we’ll share a brief note on some of the things we’ve learned having been living this reality for nearly 2 months now in the hope that it’ll help you get better prepared for what’s coming (as much as we can be).

Things to be prepared for / Practical Tips:

• Purchase your regular medications + basic first aid over-the-counter medicines that you or your family members might need.
• Keep some cash at home for any emergencies just in case ATMs are inaccessible, etc.
• Important IDs - As a reminder, check to ensure that you have all the right IDs and documents and bank accounts (setup for online banking) are in place including any govt. services.
• Place a hand sanitizer bottle near the entrance of your home for easy access for yourself as well as visitors (when you don’t have time to wash your hands)
• If you are / know someone who is part of your building or society management, do check on the housekeeping or cleaning schedules for your common spaces like lifts, lobbies and entrance doors. In HK they’re being cleaned every 2 hours, which may not be feasible but should ideally be done at least once/twice a day.
• Limit social contact to your immediate family and friends (whose travel history is known to you). As we’ve seen in HK and most Asian countries, the spread of infections is being accelerated by religious gatherings, wedding banquets, mass family gatherings and other such closed-door social functions where you’re interacting with a large group of people whom you don’t know.
• As much as possible, use personal transportation instead of public transportation.

Personal Hygiene:

• Wash hands (preferably with liquid soap) or use a hand sanitizer whenever you are entering your home from an outside place.
• Wash your clothes more often and avoid re-wearing them esp. if you’ve worn them outside.
• Clean your homes more thoroughly and preferably use some disinfectant esp. when mopping and dusting commonly touched surfaces like tables, door handles and taps.
• Another good practice is to regularly clean your mobile phones, laptop keyboards, and such other devices which you're carrying and placing on surfaces outside with antibacterial or disinfectant wipes.
• Encourage your helpers and staff to wash their hands often as well and make sure you provide them with masks. Their safety is as important as yours.
• WEAR A MASK when you’re outside the house. While it’s right that masks should be worn by people who are sick themselves, we’ve seen from HK that wearing a mask does help control spreads and limits your risk for catching the infection. It acts as a physical barrier preventing you from touching your hands to your face and it will prevent you from catching other infections/irritants. Ideally avoid touching your eyes, nose, mouth and ears with unwashed/unsanitized hands.
• There are two types of masks generally available; surgical 3-ply or 4-ply (which are disposable, the colorful side is on the outside) and N95 (which also have washable versions, again colorful side on the outside). Being environmentally conscious, a washable mask is better. :)
• When wearing a mask, ensure it’s secure around your ears and fits your face well such that it limits airflow in and out of it.
• Washable masks can be washed every week or every two weeks. Filters inside need to be changed every month or 1.5 months (depending on how often you’re going outside and for how long).
• When you reach a place (home/outside), remove the mask and put it inside the ziploc bag that it came in (or carry a separate ziploc bag to secure it). Don’t just put it on the table / any other surface.
• When removing/wearing a mask, take care to ensure you don’t touch the inside areas of the mask.
• Dispose surgical masks separately from regular trash.

Digital Tips

• Try to find some official and well-reputed sources for your daily dose of information on coronavirus and the trends in your city / nation.
• Avoid relying on Whatsapp forwards as a source of news since most of it is from unverified sources and avoid sharing forwards yourself. If you do share something, always try sharing the original link of the article/video/quote and before sharing, try doing a simple google search for the article title with the words “fact check” to confirm it’s true before spreading misinformation.
• It can be overwhelming to access and read a lot of information on the evolving situation. Try to balance the time you spend reading news on coronavirus with other things like books, movies, TV shows.

Working from Home:

• For some of you, this might be a new thing, for others it might be something you’ve done before. Either way it’s a new situation for everyone to be in this position of ‘working from home’. The key to making this work for everyone is to find and build a new routine together.
• If you’re working from home, try and find some space to set up a work space for yourself. Even if it’s part of a desk/dining table, having a designated spot to work from where you can plug in all your electronics etc, will help you to mentally get in the framework of working. Designate some ‘work hours’ to avoid working all the time. Schedule breaks for coffee/lunch. More tips on this blog which we thought was quite helpful.
• Try mimicking your office routine as much as possible. For e.g. we’re going downstairs for a coffee/chai break around 4pm everyday. Gives a physical break to walk around a bit and also mentally to step away from work for a bit. Take a proper lunch break. Don’t eat in front of your laptop/workstation. Eat on a separate dining table/coffee table, watch something on TV, talk with the others at home.
• If you’re thinking of doing something fun with your colleagues to keep your teams motivated, our team in Google HK has been using Kahoot quite effectively to do so in our virtual happy hour catch up every Friday.
• Also important to bear in mind, that if you’re working from home along with the rest of your family, you will need to figure out how to divide responsibilities at home too. Your maids / staff may or may not be able to come in and that might mean that whoever is the homemaker in your house will have an additional load to bear. Divide responsibilities like the laundry, cooking, washing utensils, sweeping, mopping, dusting to ensure no one person is burdened. This is a great opportunity for everyone in the family to chip in and pick up new skills too!
• If you’re feeling bored and realize that you’re spending a lot of time just watching TV. First off, it’s okay. Give yourself a break for some time :) But if you want ideas, go back and pick up your hobbies that you might have neglected. Reading books, being creative, drawing / painting / writing. Play board games as a family. Write letters to your friends and family. Clean up your homes! Find new recipes that you can cook from ingredients easily available near you and make new menus for the week!
• Stay in touch. Spending so much time at home could mean that you’re feeling lonely and out of touch. Find new ways to connect with your friends, colleagues and family. Do group video calls to get everyone together at the same time (if you have people living in various countries, be mindful of time zones while planning). You can use Google Hangouts, Whatsapp Video or apps like Zoom/Skype as well.
• Also, you might be in a better situation emotionally, socially and financially. Check around and reach out to see how others in your neighbourhood are doing. Your security guards, maids, drivers, vegetable vendors, pani-puri walas, might all be relying on daily wages or might not have enough savings to tide them over. Figure out as a society or community on how you can help. Don’t cut anyone’s salaries (maids, guards, drivers) even if you’re asking them not to come in, these are unprecedented times and we’re more fortunate to have savings, but it’s our responsibility to look out for those who are not.

Lastly, we want to close by saying, we know this is a long post but we hope you find some nuggets of information or ideas that are useful. Stay positive. If everyone does their bit, we will be able to prevent community infections and get through this. For positive inspiration, look outside your windows. From all that we’ve seen, we now have clearer skies, cleaner air, greener plants and chirping birds keep us company. :)

If you have any other ideas or best practices, do let us know in the comments below!

Love,

Ayesha & Vineet