The 50right Guide to Cold and Flu Prevention, including Covid

The 50right Guide to Cold and Flu Prevention, including Covid

Article from 50right.com

So I’m sitting home ill over twenty years ago. I can’t recall whether it was the cold or flu. Probably a cold which I would get two or three times a year. Possibly a flu which happened every few years. Maybe a bad flu that struck around every five years. But I do recall that I was sick and tired of it.

According to what I had heard over the years, there was no solution to this problem. There wasn’t any vaccine for a cold, and even the flu shot wasn’t guaranteed. The shot available would help prevent the current strain of flu. However if exposed to a new strain, then infection would still occur. The clever evolutionary process of the cold and flu virus which is known as mutation, ensures that it might not be possible to develop a permanent vaccine such as was done with polio.

Frankly I don’t like getting shots. I have never had a flu shot. A weakened immune system can occur from too many shots. Then our immune system may not be able to perform properly when another disease invades our body.

The immune system is our lifeguard. If it's fatigued, then we are more susceptible to danger from all sorts of nasty germs out there. Realizing all this, I figured that I was stuck for the rest of my life with the status quo, and would simply have to accept the consequences of the cold and flu when it strikes, and try to make the best of it.

Well I decided to research it further, and lo and behold, I came across this small piece of advice from some obscure website whose name I have long forgotten. In a nutshell, it stated when out in public to not touch your eyes, nose, ears, or mouth with your fingers, and basically you won’t catch the cold or flu. Mainly because that’s how the cold and flu is usually transmitted. I said to myself how is it possible to not touch those facial areas? So I initially scoffed at the advice, and figured no wonder why it’s posted on some obscure website.

However I kept on reading facts about the cold and flu, and kept thinking about the advice. I learned that the advice was technically correct in that the cold and flu virus is mainly transmitted by touch thru your eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Remember, your worst enemy for cold and flu transmission is your own fingers.

A cold or flu can be transmitted by air, but someone almost has to sneeze directly into your face for that to happen. Perhaps a lot of sick folks sneezing and coughing from a cold or flu in a small room with little ventilation such as a barber shop, could possibly infect a healthy person breathing in the air, but that’s a long shot.

Many believe that the cold, flu, and covid virus are spread mainly by air thru various ways. For brevity sake, let’s take the nuclear missile example of a sneeze which they say is by far the most dangerous way of transmission by air. I’ve seen the laboratory studies on this with infrared videos, etc, of how many droplets are dispersed with a sneeze. It does look horrifyingly contagious. However these studies are flawed when relating to transmission. This is because they don’t take into account that almost all human beings in a civilized society, when in a building or room with other people, instinctively cover their mouth during a sneeze. So instead of the sneezed droplets going into the air, the droplets go into a hand. Even if someone doesn’t cover their mouth, the larger most perilous droplets quickly fall to the floor anyway.

Now of course there’s still a problem. Most people after catching the sneeze, tend to just wipe their palms with their fingers, or rub their two hands together to sort of dry up the droplets. Some may rub their hands on their clothes. Yes all that makes the moisture go down to a comfort level of their hands not feeling wet. Unfortunately if they’re infected, there are still countless numbers of germs on their hands, with their fingers spreading it by touching other objects, or other means such as a handshake. So while in theory, transmitting the virus by air may have the highest viral numbers, in practice it’s touch doing the most damage as far as actually spreading and causing infection.

I’ve walked thru food and retail stores even during this covid era with no fear whatsoever of catching it thru air transmission. My track record proves or certainly at least illustrates that touch is the major factor in transmitting these viruses. One thing that might sway the results in my favor is my strong immune system. So perhaps because of that, I have no problem breathing in some of these viruses, and my strong immune system decimates them upon entry. Whereby someone else with a compromised immune system, may be more susceptible to getting infected by air transmission.

If you fear possible viral transmission by air, then do your shopping early in the day or later at night when the stores are less crowded to lessen the chance of becoming infected. Either that or don’t go out in public at all. But regardless of whichever way is in fact the major way of becoming infected with these viruses, the info contained in this article is still vitally helpful.

Not only vital for present viruses of cold, flu, and covid, but also for future new viruses. Which sooner or later will be created and coming from biological lab testing leaks, unsanitary wet market conditions, third world villages living in squalor, or mammals in the wild when their viruses jump to human beings. In the early stages of a new pandemic, there certainly won’t be any vaccines available.

So I began pondering all the gathered info, then came up with a game plan and followed it. Turns out that it has been tremendously successful beyond my wildest expectations. For over twenty years, I have not had a cold or flu, except for one time, and I’ll tell that quick story towards the end of the article.

I would now like to share this game plan with you. IE pay it forward for the much appreciated advice, kindly posted on that obscure website over twenty years ago.

First, when out in public, it’s vitally important to remember not to touch your eyes, inner nose, or inner ears with your fingers. Based on my experience, these facial areas are the preferred way of the virus to enter your body and quickly multiply. If you can discipline yourself to do this, you’ve already won most of the battle.

Be sure to keep disposable tissues in your pocket, purse, or car at all times. I prefer the non-scented tissues versus the scented. I'd rather not be shoving perfume up my nose or in my eye. So when say your nose is running, wipe it with the tissue. Then discard the tissue. Do not reuse it.

You must be careful when handling the tissue to make sure you're not wiping say your nose with an area of the tissue that you may have touched. So let's say you need to wipe your inner nose with the tissue. Pull out the tissue and try not to touch the side that you're going to use to wipe your nose. Place your finger underneath the touched side, and wipe your nose with the untouched side.

Use 3-ply tissues for better performance versus 2-ply, especially for your runny nose. The 3-ply is less likely to split apart inside your nose versus the 2-ply. If the 2-ply tissue splits open inside your nose and exposes your contaminated finger, then the whole purpose of this exercise is defeated. You may now be infected.

I would also advise to not touch your mouth either. However your mouth is less vulnerable than the other facial areas. For example something you would eat prepared in a fast food joint and purchased at the take-out window. If the food preparer transmits virus on to the food, your stomach acid generally annihilates the virus. So eating is relatively safe. But remember that the fast food wrapper could be contaminated. So when unwrapping the hamburger, just presume that the virus is now on your fingers.

Dining inside a restaurant calls for a different strategy. Nothing strategically changes about the food, but everything else changes because of the surroundings. The enter/exit door handle is a plethora of germs. Your fingers are immediately contaminated the moment you open the door. Yes, you can walk into the bathroom, wash and sanitize your hands, and think you’re okay. However the moment you open the bathroom door to walk out, your fingers are likely contaminated again.

The possibilities for contamination are everywhere. Something you may not think of is your own clothing. Someone sitting at the chair or table before you in the restaurant, may have been infected. Your clothes rub against the chair or table, then you touch your clothes, and your fingers get contaminated just from that.

Also the little credit/debit card processing machine is an area of contamination. If you need to tap in your card’s PIN number, that means many before you have done the same, and your fingers will then likely be contaminated. This type of awareness needs to be in place not just for restaurants, but every store and public area that you visit. If it's an area you can touch, then others have touched it as well.

Your visit to a grocery or department store will have the same sort of strategy when inside the building, but it needs to go a step further. To be on the safe side, consider every product that you touch or buy to be contaminated. Others before you have touched it as well. Either the workers placing it on the shelves or other customers picking it up to look at it further. So when bringing the items home, consider it contaminated.

In general these type of viruses die after a few hours outside the human body. Could be longer, but after a given amount of time the products that you put on your home shelves or in the refrigerator should be safe after around a few hours.

Note that the “few hours” can vary depending on circumstances. If someone infected at the store, wiped their nose, handled the item you bought, and placed a sizable gob of mucus on it, then it could take many more hours for that entire virus to die. So be careful with this. If in doubt, say if it’s a product that could be handled by a lot of people before buying, such as an electronic product with many picking it up and examining it, then wipe the packaging down after bringing it home. After opening it, use the same caution as to not touch the previously mentioned facial areas while installing it. After installation, you should wash your hands, presuming that your fingers may be contaminated even if you washed your hands right after you came home.

Coming home is not the time to let your guard down. You turn on the light switch, now that area could be contaminated. You wash your hands, do everything right, but then turn off the light switch and your fingers could be contaminated again. You must remain vigilant.

Always use separate bath towels for your hands and face. When washing your hands, dry them off with one bath towel. Dry off your face with a different bath towel. Yes, the germs should be removed after washing your hands and then drying them off. But just in case some germs are still on that towel, you don't want to immediately transmit those germs to your vulnerable facial areas. Keep a towel there on the hanger just for drying your hands, and let any remaining germs die on that towel. You could color coordinate the towels, for example the red towel, red signaling alarm, would be the hand towel.

From something you bought at the store, say a box of cereal. You come home, wash your hands, change your clothes, do everything right. But you grab the box of cereal to eat, and boom your fingers may now be contaminated again. Yes, you may not be touching your vulnerable facial areas while munching on the corn flakes. However when you go to use the computer, your now contaminated fingers spread the contamination to the keyboard. You're involved with the computer, anxious to check your messages, etc, and possibly take your focus off the virus prevention system. You innocently scratch your inner nose or wipe your eyes, and boom you're infected.

There can be seemingly endless ways of your fingers getting contaminated and transmitting disease to your facial areas which then spreads throughout your body. So before touching your vulnerable facial areas with your fingers after coming home, you had better be 100% sure that your fingers are not contaminated. If you're not absolutely sure, and don't feel like washing your hands over and over again, just continue to use a 3-ply tissue until you feel enough time has passed, whereby the virus in your home and say on your computer keyboard or TV remote control has perished.

Before nodding off to sleep, it's always a good idea for one last time to wash your hands. Use a new towel because the towel previously used to dry your hands, might be contaminated. Using three sets of towels or more, shouldn't be any problem when you're trying to prevent a much bigger problem of becoming infected with a nasty virus.

When living by yourself, it's relatively easy to implement this virus prevention system. When living with a partner, it should also be relatively easy as long as both of you agree to using these virus prevention techniques. However when living with children, you can try your best to teach them to be careful, but you cannot count on it, especially with children at a young age in grade school. Sorry to say that if you live with children, you are going to have to presume at all times that your home is contaminated, particularly during cold and flu season, and use the exact same precautions of not touching the mentioned facial areas with your fingers, unless it's with a 3-ply tissue or after thoroughly washing your hands.

Does all of this seem neurotic? Maybe it could be called that. However once you get into the good habit of doing all this, it simply becomes part of a healthy lifestyle. You will just automatically do it without thinking about it too much. Perhaps the same as when you cross the street, especially a busy intersection, you never just blindly walk out into traffic. You cautiously look both ways again and again to make sure that it’s safe in order to prevent a serious injury. Now you’re looking to prevent a serious illness.

Basically you have a choice. Follow the prevention advice in this article, or get the covid vaccine shot and updated boosters. Unfortunately, evidence seems to be mounting that the covid vaccine and boosters are causing blood clots which can lead to strokes and heart attacks. I’ve never seen so many healthy young people out there mysteriously dropping dead. The cause and effect seems obvious.

Another potential problem with the covid vaccine are possible long term side effects. This covid is a nasty virus which can even damage the brain. Will the covid vaccine and boosters do the same in the long run? In my view, I don’t wish to find out. But everyone has to make a decision for themselves and their family as to what to do. I’m certainly not trying to play doctor, just explaining what has worked remarkably well for me for over twenty years. Gather all the information from this article and elsewhere, and make an informed choice.

This covid virus mutates rapidly and will likely be around for a very long time. If you make the choice of the covid vaccine, then you’re almost committed to the boosters every time there’s a mutation. That means a lot of jabs over the course of a lifetime which based on the empirical evidence of healthy people unexpectedly dropping dead, could result in a horrific situation that you are trying to avoid.

Really thinking about it, is this virus prevention system all that difficult and tedious that it’s not worth doing to help prevent a harmful and deadly disease? Frankly, even if you’ve had the vaccine and multiple boosters, but you contract a new mutation anyway, you’re likely to wish that you had followed the good advice in this article and applied these simple virus protection procedures into your life.

Now for the quick story of how only one time over the past twenty years, I caught the flu. Around five years ago, on a Saturday afternoon in June, I’m driving back home from the food store with the groceries, on a four lane divided highway, with the car windows rolled down. Just enjoying the wind blowing in my face on a warm summer day. Suddenly something awful flies into my eye. It sort of felt like a tiny sliver of metal. My eye watered so badly, I couldn’t even see out of it. The other eye was affected as well. My vision was terribly impaired.

Based on what is presented in this article, I knew that I shouldn’t touch my eyes with my bare fingers after being at the food store. But I had to process a lot of information in a few seconds of time because I was on a busy road and there wasn’t any place to pull over. There was no time to grab a tissue. I certainly didn’t want to get in a car accident. But I figured it was June which is not cold and flu season, and hopefully there was little chance that my fingers were contaminated.

So I slowed down a little bit, carefully glanced in the vanity mirror, and tried to poke it out with my bare finger. I was not successful. However I was familiar with the highway, and knew that a church was coming up in a couple miles. I continued to drive on, finally made a right hand turn into the church parking lot, stopped the car and turned off the engine. It was quite a harrowing experience.

My eyes were still tearing badly. I then grabbed a tissue, and tried to search my eye to see what was in there. I never did find what caused it as the tears must have washed it out. I sat there for maybe a half hour and the tears finally subsided, my eyes recovered, and I was able to drive again.

I finally get home, unpack the groceries, and pondered if I gave myself a cold or flu? It was before the covid era, so there wasn’t any thought about that. Again, I figured it was June, and unlikely that I caught a virus during the off season for colds and flu. Especially from just a brief touch with my finger.

Well you already know what’s coming. The next day around the same time, I start getting flu symptoms. Boom, I was infected with the flu. That’s how contagious these viruses are. Fortunately this flu didn’t bother me all that much because thru a healthy diet, and no bad habits affecting my body such as alcohol, smoking, drugs, etc, my immune system is very strong. It turned out to be a few days of a high fever, some rough coughing at times, and a feeling of malaise, but that’s about it. I was almost more upset that my fifteen year streak of going cold and flu free had been broken.

To wrap up the article, if you become infected, I’d like to quickly present my cold and flu fighting formula. Through experimentation over many years, has worked well to mitigate the effects of the cold and flu. Which besides having a strong immune system, is another reason why the flu I caught that day didn’t become too severe.

To best fight it off, requires a quick, dramatic change in diet and lifestyle. So upon feeling the flu symptoms that day, I immediately drove out to the supermarket and bought scallops. I’m still not sure why, but for whatever reason, these delicious tasting shellfish help to fight colds and flu. Perhaps because they are high in protein, but they must pack something else in there that the cold and flu virus does not like. Just cook and serve them plain with no butter, sauce, or anything like that. Other shellfish may work well. Fish such as wild caught salmon is great. But I like scallops the best.

Eliminate all sugar including fruit. These viruses love sugar. Include some cooked organic veggies with the scallops. Sprinkle some organic garlic in there with the veggies, as germs do not like garlic.

During this sick time, you really must not consume any “bad habit” food or drink that you may currently enjoy. The internet has much good advice on the food and drink to avoid, and what can work well for you.

Double up or even triple up on your normal intake of B and C vitamins. Instead of taking your multiple vitamin once a day, make it twice a day. Stay hydrated with room temperature water. Do not perform any strenuous exercise and sorry to say, abstain from sex. You want your body totally focused on getting rid of the virus.

You can take aspirin or similar as recommended on the bottle to alleviate the headache and other body pain. Personally, I don’t like cough suppressors. I believe that you want your body to cough, which is its way of using mucus to grab those germs and cough them out of your body. All this is what has worked well for me.

There are numerous tips on the internet about what to do if catching the cold or flu, including covid. Decide what is best for you. Your pre-existing conditions including a weakened immune system, should weigh heavily on the choices you make, and of course a good doctor can help with those choices.

That being said about fighting these viruses when becoming infected, never forget the old saying of “prevention is the best medicine” which is what this article is all about.

Wishing you the very best of health, and a cold, flu, and covid free life.