Afford Anything - PSA Thursday: How to Stay Safe During the Reopenings

Episode Date: July 9, 2020

Welcome back to PSA Thursday, a mostly-weekly segment in which we talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the middle of a pandemic. This week, we focus on life and staying safe when venturing outside of your home. Many of us are concerned with reducing the risk of coronavirus infection in places like grocery stores, gas stations, or backyard BBQs, but the guidelines on how to stay safe aren't always clear. In this episode, we discuss specific precautions to take... When using a public toilet When picking up food at a quick-serve restaurant When you're exercising at the gym When filling your car with gas In your general day-to-day life when you're out and about For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/psathursday Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to PSA Thursday. This is a special weekly bonus segment of the Afford Anything podcast in which we talk about how to handle money, work, and life in the middle of a pandemic. If this is your first time tuning into a PSA Thursday episode, here's what you can expect. First of all, PSA Thursday is a stripped-down, bare bones, cut-to-the-chase version of our show. These are much shorter episodes. There's no intro music, no outro music, no sound effects. Well, typically no sound effects. There will be one in today's episode. If we do guest interviews, then we don't have key takeaway. We intentionally keep these episodes ad-free.

So these are basic bare-bones bonus episodes in which we deep dive into a particular topic related to the year 2020. On some of our previous PSA Thursday episodes, we talked about how the CARES Act, which was passed in the spring of 2020, how the CARES Act impacts student loans. We talked about donor advised funds and how you can use them to donate to nonprofits and organizations that are doing great work. And we talked about how small business owners can access funds to keep themselves afloat. Initially, we created that episode because the PPP funds were ending. So we did a whole retrospective on the history of the PPP. But now that program deadline is extended until August 8th. So if you are a small business owner, you can still apply for PPP funding.

But if you're looking for additional sources of funding or alternatives to the PPP, we cover those in a previous PSA Thursday episode. So you can tune in to all of that and check out the whole PSA Thursday archives at a Ford-anything.com slash PSA Thursday. In today's episode, we're going to talk about, how to stay safe as you begin venturing back outside. The nation is reopening. Many people are starting to leave their homes again. You might be going back to the office. You might go to a restaurant. You might get a haircut. So how can you stay safe as you venture back outside? How can you protect yourself and subsequently the members of your household from COVID-19? In today's episode,

we're going to talk about safety in five places. Public restrooms, fast food or quick serve food establishments, gyms and fitness centers, at the gas pump, and then general or overall. Now, before we begin, a quick disclaimer that I may be talking about safety or throwing around phrases like, you know, how to stay safe, how to protect yourselves. But bear in mind that when we talk about this, we're talking about harm reduction or risk reduction. Nothing is ever 100% safe. nothing is ever 100% guaranteed.

So I'll be throwing around the more colloquial phrase, stay safe. But what I mean by that is reduce risk. With that said, let's turn to the most appetizing of the five topics that we're going to cover today. How to protect yourself when you use a public restroom. Let's kick off with the bad news. According to research that was published in June in a journal called the Physics of Fluids, there is evidence that coronavirus can be passed not only through respiratory droplets, but through virus-laden feces. Sorry for those of you who are listening to this

while you're eating lunch. According to this article, flushing a toilet can generate a cloud of aerosol droplets that rise nearly three feet, and those aerosol droplets can linger in the air long enough to be inhaled by the person in the neighboring stall, or it can land on surfaces in the bathroom so that when you touch, say, the door of a stall or a doorknob, you might be touching it. Essentially, with every flush, the toilet releases microbes into the environment, and those microbes land on walls, the toilet seat, the floor, the toilet, the door handles. And a new study suggests that potentially infectious particles continue to be airborne for about a minute after each flush. So that's the bad news slash the gross news. Now, the good news is we do not yet know if public

toilets or shared toilets are a common point of transmission of the virus. And there is certainly evidence that suggests that virus particles in a toilet bowl are less infectious than virus particles that come from, say, someone sneezing on you. But still, it's an unpleasant idea. And as more offices, restaurants, and other businesses open up, more and more people will need to use public restrooms. Not to mention, compounding the issue is that many restrooms are poorly ventilated, and the crowds that come through are all touching the same sink faucets, doorknobs, the locking mechanism on stall doors. With all of that established, what are some of the tips that public health experts share regarding use of a public restroom? Number one, keep your mask on. And be particularly

cautious or particularly aware about not touching your face while you're in there. If someone exits a bathroom stall or a single bathroom right before you, and there's not a line, wait for at least 60 seconds before you enter that same stall. Now, here's what you can totally skip doing. You can skip putting a paper seat cover on the toilet. These could easily be contaminated with toilet plume, so touching these things with your hands could be a source of infectious transmission.

So you don't need to worry about putting a paper seat cover over the seat. But do please sit down, don't hover, because hovering often leaves urine on a seat, which means that either you or the next person has to wipe down that toilet seat, which is the surface with the most exposure to infectious plume, and that's just not nice. By the way, the source for all of this, all of the reference material, all of the articles that we've looked at, all of the sources and information for everything that we're discussing here will be linked to in the show notes.

And the show notes are available at afford anything.com slash PSA Thursday. So going back to more tips for the toilet, get your business done as fast as possible and then get out of there. This is not the time to be scrolling your phone while you're on the toilet. You want to be doing this in record time. When you do go to flush the toilet, close the lid first and then flush. And if an automated toilet starts automatically flushing, step away because those things spray. Once you're out of the stall, wash your hands extra carefully and use a paper towel to turn off the sink faucet after you've washed your hands so that you're not touching that faucet with newly clean hands. Now, for those of you who have young kids, if you are changing an infant or a baby, if you're changing a child in a diaper,

there are some public health experts who recommend bringing a plastic garbage bag to spread out over the changing table. This creates a clean mat. And once you're done changing that diaper, you can then roll up the diaper as well as sanitizing wipes and disposable gloves and anything else that you might have. You can roll all of that up into the garbage bag and then throw it all away. Alternatively, I've talked to friends who are parents who tell me that they're changing their babies in the back of their car. So those are some tips for staying safe when you use a public restroom. Now off the topic of the toilet and on to the somewhat related topic of fast food or quick serve food, places where you can get a grab and go lunch, if you're out and about and you need to grab quick food on the go, how do you reduce risk while doing so? A few tips.

Number one, if the place has a drive-thru, use it, stay in your car, even if it means that after you receive the food, you will then pull into a parking spot and eat in a parked car. Your car, after all, is your own personal bubble. If you don't have access to a drive-through, sit, if possible, at an outdoor table. If you must sit indoors, choose a table that's far away from everyone. Now, there are many places that will close off or block certain tables in order to enforce social distancing, but there are other places that won't do that or won't do that perfectly. So to the best of your ability, look around and choose a table that is off on its own. Now, the next tip is to wash your hands before you consume your food, particularly if you're consuming anything that you touch directly with your fingers like burgers, tacos, sandwiches, French fries.

So take the food out of the packaging, put it on a plate, and then go wash your hands before you eat. If you're inside of your car, make sure you have some hand sanitizer with you. When you go to pay for your food, don't use cash because you won't want to be collecting change. Instead, try using either a credit card or even better some type of verse. payment option like Apple Pay. The benefit to that being that you don't have to pull out your wallet if you're using something like Apple Pay. Now, if you have to sign a receipt, use your own pen, and then when you're done, wipe it down with a sanitizing wipe. I've also seen some establishments that have a ton of disinfected pens. So I've seen establishments that will have two containers,

one that's labeled sanitized pens, and the other that's labeled used pens. And that way, each pen is being used only one time before it goes into the used pen bucket and then later get sanitized by the staff. Now, I know some of you may be thinking like, wow, this sounds kind of extreme. Isn't it more likely that if you catch coronavirus, it'll be from somebody talking too close to you, breathing in your face, coughing on you? Do we really need to be so paranoid about touching the same surfaces? I know a lot of people are thinking that and I get it. I understand it. But on the flip side, using your own pen or using Apple Pay is a relatively minor inconvenience. So if you think about cost versus benefit, the degree of benefit is still an open question. There's a lot that we don't

know about this virus. We only discovered the virus in December 2019. We have not known about it for very long. And so there are years, decades of research ahead of us where we learn more about COVID-19. But in the meantime, just use your own pen and wipe it down when you're done. There's really no reason not to. So those are tips on how to reduce risk when you are going to a fast food or quick serve food establishment. And again, like I said, all of the articles, all of the sources, everything is linked to at afford anything.com slash PSA Thursday. Next, let's talk about the gym. A lot of people are very excited about going back to the gym, being able to access your favorite exercise equipment, being able to just get out of the house. But of course,

gyms are also places where people are breathing heavily, sweating, panting, touching a lot of the same stuff. So ideally, the best thing to do is to continue to either work out at home or exercise outdoors. Ideally, that's optimal. But if you do go back to the gym, here are a few pointers. First, wipe down every piece of equipment before you use it, including free weights. Now, many gyms will have disinfecting wipes that are available for their clients or customers, but you can also bring your own bottle of spray and some paper towels if you want to. That way you'll have it with you and it'll be convenient to use it as you move from machine to machine. When you go to use a piece of equipment, don't just spray it down or wipe it down and then immediately use it. Wait for the disinfectant

to dry. If you spray down the handles on a machine, you don't want to then grip those handles while they're still wet with disinfectant. Wait for it to dry. And in fact, according to one interview that I read, the expert in that interview actually recommended waiting for a full 10 minutes. Now that's a very long time and that might not be possible, but at a minimum wait for it to dry. And remember, you will have more capacity to wait at times when the gym is not crowded. And going when the gym is not crowded is a good idea anyway. And that leads to the next point. Visit the gym outside of peak hours.

And or visit a less crowded location. While you're there, social distance leave a machine or two between yourself and the next person. There are many gyms that have spaced their machines first. apart, but some have not or some haven't left adequate space, so to the greatest extent possible, leave a machine or two between yourself and your neighbors. Bring your own hand sanitizer, yoga mats, towels, water bottles, bring your own items with you when you go to the gym and clean these when you leave. In particular, avoid using shared items that are porous and hard to clean, such as foam rollers or yoga blocks. Now, if you are practicing yoga, Pilates, or a lower-intensity

workout, something that won't elevate your heart rate, that won't cause you to breathe heavily, there is something to be said for keeping your mask on. According to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, wearing a mask or otherwise covering your face during exercise does come with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort and requires, quote, balancing benefits versus possible adverse events. Meanwhile, the nonprofit American Council of Exercise says that it is possible that heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask. So certainly not everybody should do this. And like the British Journal of Sports Medicine says, you have to balance the potential benefits with the potential adverse consequences.

So think about it critically. Make the best decision for yourself. As I said, I'm not saying that everybody should do it or even should try to do it. Simply that there's for some people in some activities, there is something to be said for it. Next, let's talk about the gas pump. So the thing about a fuel pump is that everybody touches it. So when you go to pump gas into your vehicle, use some type of a barrier like a paper towel or a set of disposable gloves when you are touching that fuel pump. It's helpful, I found, to keep a roll of paper towels in the car so that you have quick and easy access to paper towels any time that you need to use it as a barrier over your hand when you're touching something.

pay for your gas at the pump so that you don't need to go indoors and apply some hand sanitizer when you get back into the car. So those are a few tips for staying safe at the pump. And finally, general tips. Here are three. One is to avoid water fountains. Stick with filling up your water bottle at home. Or if you're in a pinch and you forgot your water bottle at home, buy bottled water. And I know as frugal people, that goes against all of our training. You know, don't buy lattes, don't buy bottled water. But 2020 is a special time. Ideally, you'd have a reusable bottle that you bring from home, but I get it. Sometimes you forget. When that happens, shell out the extra dollar or two to buy a bottle rather than using a public water fountain. Keep some basic

supplies like disinfecting wipes, paper towels, hand sanitizer, keep these stashed at home in your car and at your desk. And don't forget to disinfect your phone. Your phone is one of those items that you touch the most. So wipe it down regularly. Those are tips on how to reduce risk as you venture outside of your home again. Pointers and tips that can help you stay cautious as you use public restrooms, buy fast food or quickserve food, go to the gym, pump fuel at a gas station, and generally navigate through your day in the middle of an ongoing pandemic. We have a special bonus. We've created a nice PDF that summarizes and lists out a lot of these tips. If you want to download that for free so that you can send it on to friends, family members, anyone who you want to share

this info with? You can grab that cute PDF for free at afford anything.com slash toilet. That is our PSA Thursday for today. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend or a family member or send them the downloadable PDF that we put together at affordanithing.com slash toilet. If you want to connect with other people in the afford anything community, you can find them at afford anything.com slash community.

where you can share ideas, questions, tips, advice about absolutely anything, whether it's early retirement, investing, budgeting, debt payoff, working from home, or returning back to work after having been at home for the past few months. Anything that you want to talk about, you can talk to other members of this community at affordanything.com slash community. Thanks for tuning in. My name is Paula Pantt. This is the Afford Anything podcast. You're listening to PSA Thursday, a special bonus segment of the podcast that focuses on how to navigate through life during a pay. pandemic, this upcoming Monday we will be featuring an interview with Dr. Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist who talks about how personality is not as permanent as we like to

believe it is, and then describes how to apply this insight to your life. So make sure that you hit subscribe or follow in whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast so that you don't miss that interview or any of our other awesome upcoming interviews. Thanks again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I will catch you in the next episode.