Building A Healthy Society: What Can You Do?
As stay-at-home orders resulting from the pandemic (worldwide outbreak) of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 are slowly being lifted, it’s a good time to think about our own safety, as well as how to best look out for our fellow human beings. Public health initiatives have received renewed attention around the world. Our participation in these efforts contributes to a healthy society. What can you do?
Viruses and bacteria cause sickness. These tiny pathogens spread from human to human through droplets in the air that we breathe and on surfaces that we touch. When we leave our homes and spend time with other people, we will likely encounter viruses and bacteria. We could even give them to other people. We can keep ourselves – and others – healthy by following three basic instructions.
(1) Practice social distancing. The pathogens that spread through the air cannot reach you easily if their source, another human, is approximately 6 feet (2 meters) away from you.
(2) Wear a face covering. Masks and similar face coverings work two ways. They help keep airborne pathogens from entering your mouth and nose. And, they prevent you from distributing viruses and bacteria that you may be carrying.
(3) Wash your hands. If pathogens have landed on a surface, you can get them on your hands. And from your hands, they can transfer to everything you touch. The best way to get pathogens off your hands is to wash them with soap and water. If you don’t have soap and water close by, use hand sanitizer (it should contain at least 60 percent alcohol).
Even when we are careful to follow those three instructions, tiny pathogens can still slip through. Our next defense is our own body’s immune system. But even though we are tough, those little pathogens can be even tougher, and for millennia, humans succumbed to diseases that spread easily from person to person. We are fortunate, however, to live in an era when public health scientists have developed ways to help our bodies fight disease. The main method is to vaccinate against diseases caused by viruses and bacteria.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that “vaccination is important because it not only protects the person who gets the vaccine, but also helps to keep diseases from spreading to others, like family members, neighbors, classmates, and other members of your communities.” Another word for vaccination is “inoculation.”
Here are a few of the diseases that used to afflict – and kill – thousands of people every year. Have you known anyone to come down with these diseases recently?
• Polio
• Diphtheria
• Whooping cough (also called pertussis)
Widespread vaccination has made outbreaks of these illnesses an artifact of the past. The key is to maintain the vaccination rate, so that the diseases remain an artifact of the past. When you get vaccinated against such diseases, you can’t become infected with their pathogens. That means, for example, that the polio virus cannot live in your body, and you cannot spread it to anyone else. You have taken a positive step in contributing to public health.
Stay safe!