The Covid-19 pandemic had made the life of ours really difficult and is still haunting us. While staying at home is the best thing you can do to combat this deadly virus, it isn’t possible to stay indoors for months. You have to step outside for your job, buying food, and other essentials.
Some parts of India are currently under total lockdown while most parts of the country having a lot of relaxation. In this time of the epidemic, most people are avoiding public transport and using their vehicles as the commute. Avoiding the crowd at public transport is undoubtedly a great idea but you must follow a lot of safety precautions and carry top accessories for car travel during lockdown to inhibit the chances of getting infected.
The worst thing about the Covid-19 virus is that it can survive in the atmosphere outside for several days. You can even get infected from your car and bike if they got contaminated. Your clothes, accessories you carry, hair, and car traps multiple germs and viruses during your travel. Most of those bacteria and viruses aren’t harmful as our body has developed immunity compared to the Coronavirus.
I have listed a handful of accessories and gears to carry while traveling during this pandemic.
1.Car Disinfectant
Cars and other four-wheelers are bigger fomites compared to two-wheelers when it comes to trapping viruses and other harmful micro-organisms. You must carry a car disinfectant and clean the surface most of the time. Make effort to travel as little as possible and keep your car clean during these pandemic times.
- High Touch Surfaces – Make sure to disinfect the surfaces you touch the most while driving including steering wheel, switches, knobs, buttons, screens, car keys, etc.
- Grey Area – The low touched surfaces are considered as grey areas here which consist of the window glass, headliner, and door handle.
- HVAC Unit – The HVAC unit here stands for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units. These car parts can also carry viruses and it becomes necessary to clean these areas too.
2.Anti-viral Masks
A simple face mask made of cotton cloth can help you fight this deadly virus outbreak. You should never leave your house without your mask and when it comes to affordability, a face mask is one of the cheapest accessories you can carry with yourself to combat viral infection.
With the mask, you can also carry a transparent face shield for the utmost protection. Masks not only protect the users from harmful micro-organisms but it also stops pollutants present in the air to enter your body while breathing.
3.Hand Sanitizer
Washing hands with water and soap many times throughout the day will reduce the chances of getting infected with the coronavirus. It will be difficult to carry soap and water for washing hands while traveling. A hand sanitizer having a proper amount of alcohol can help you disinfect your hands thus you should carry one too.
4.Germ Eliminating Wand
A germ eliminating wand can help you disinfect those surfaces and stuff that cannot be washed or sanitize for disinfecting. These wands emit strong UV-C rays that kill microscopic bacteria and viruses efficiently.
The UV-C rays damage the DNA of viruses and bacteria hence making them less harmful for humans and other living creatures. The best thing about these germ eliminating wands is that they are easy to use. You just have to place it over the surface you want to sanitize for a few seconds.
5.Map of Contaminated Zones
Now, this is some kind of worthy tip you must follow. Precaution is better than cure and not traveling through the containment zones while driving could be the best idea to avoid the virus. You must keep yourself updated with the daily news about Coronavirus and the most affected zones in your locality to avoid visiting those destinations.
6.Smart Thermometer
High fever is one of the common symptoms of Corona and sometimes the fever remains mild too. Few people don’t ever show any symptoms and many even don’t take it seriously. These things can result in community spread of the virus; hence you must keep these things in mind.
You should carry a digital smart thermometer with yourself while driving and can check the body temperature of yours and others if required. The regular thermometer consists of mercury inside and needs to keep inside the mouth and underarm for checking body temperature and isn’t safe enough to use multiple times.
With a digital smart thermometer, you can diagnose a person’s body temperature without even touching it and the best thing is that these smarter variants of thermometers can be easily sanitized too.
7.Latex Gloves
We use our hand a lot throughout the day for various purposes and it can easily catch viruses too. Latex gloves or surgical gloves can help you avoid spreading viruses via your hand. It simply keeps your hand covered and reduces the chances of getting contacted with the harmful micro-organisms.
8.Car Vacuum Cleaner
It’s always a great thing to keep your car’s interior clean but it isn’t easy enough. The dirt and debris get stuck in some of the tiny spaces inside the car and make cleaning almost impossible. A compact car vacuum cleaner will come handy in order to remove those unwanted things even from the tiniest space possible.
There are wired and cordless car vacuum cleaners available but you should go with the wireless one. The wireless cleaner will help you reach and clean the smallest space inside the car. As metals, plastic, paper, clothes can trap the Covid-19 virus, no matter if they are tiny particles or big enough.
9.Safety Guidelines
As it isn’t an accessory, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it seriously. You must follow all of the safety guidelines to combat this virus outbreak during the lockdown as well as during the relaxation period. The local body government, the health department and the WHO had provided few safety measures to follow and everybody should take those guidelines seriously.
10.Digital Payment
You won’t believe but doing digital payment instead of using currency can save you. Currency and coins can trap and transmit viruses very easily thus you must switch to digital payment during this time of disaster.
Paying bills not only keeps you safe from unwanted and deadly micro-organisms it also provides great convenience and security. Mark yourself and your money safe by doing online and digital money transactions and help this world in its fight against the COVID-19 virus.
Bottom Line:
We are all in this fight against the Covid-19 virus outbreak and must give most of our efforts. We have to do a lot of tasks in our daily life and hence we have to leave our houses. No matter if we are staying inside, leaving for the job, or going to have some eatables, we must take precautions and follow the guidelines.
Few gears can help us reduce the chances of getting infected throughout the day. If you travel in your own commute then you must keep some accessories inside your car which can help you stop the transmission of viruses while driving.