Pre-Reading Questions:
- When do you usually touch your face?
- Do you wash your hands regularly? Why or why not?
Vocabulary:
- illness /IL-nis/
- exposed /ik-SPOHZD/
- reach /reech/
- pneumonia /nuh-MOW-nyuh/
- sanitizer /SAN-i-tahy-zer/
- conscious /KON-shuhs/
- mindful /MAHYND-fuhl/
[noun] a disease of the body or mind
Due to illness, my sister cannot go to work for 5 days.
[adjective] in a vulnerable position or situation
Children are more likely exposed to illegal drugs.
[verb] to arrive at a place
A virus can reach into your body if you always touch your face with dirty hands.
[noun] a serious illness in which one or both lungs become red and swollen and filled with liquid
The woman’s pneumonia diagnosis explained why she couldn’t comfortably breathe.
[noun] a liquid for washing your hands in order to get rid of harmful bacteria from them
Hand sanitizer kills 99.9 percent of all known germs.
[adjective] aware
She is very conscious of her weight, so she is careful about everything she eats.
[adjective] careful not to forget about something
He is very mindful of his promises to his friends.
A lot of us admit that touching our face is one of the hardest things to do. We rub our eyes, scratch our nose, and touch our mouth often. But did you know that this bad habit will make you exposed to respiratory infections? According to Dr. Mary-Louise McLaws, an epidemiology professor and health care infection and infectious disease control in Australia, you’re welcoming a virus 11 ways to reach your body by simply touching your face. Our face is one of the entry points where viruses may come in so we must avoid touching it.
Health authorities are urging us to regularly wash our hands to protect ourselves from the coronavirus. As we all know, this coronavirus can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to pneumonia. It can spread very easily and can infect us in just one shot when a sick person coughs and sneezes in a confined space. Just imagine you are inside the elevator and an infected person sneezes without covering his mouth, what are you going to do?
Based on an experimental study of rhinovirus, researchers found out that if a tiny virus was put on a finger, 40 percent could live for an hour and 16 percent could live for three hours. Most of the virus can survive longer on metal and plastics and will die in fabrics or tissue, so whenever you touch things made of metal or plastics, make sure you wash your hands properly or put some sanitizer on it. As Doctor William P. Sawyer, a physician and founder of HenrytheHand.com said, if you wash your hands frequently, your body’s risk of transmitting infection will be reduced by 30 to 50 percent. Wearing makeup for ladies will also help a lot to avoid touching their face because it can make them conscious not to smudge it. Wearing glasses and hand cover would also be very effective in preventing direct contact with the virus.
Since touching our face is a difficult habit to break, we need to boost our awareness and efforts of not doing it. Let’s practice being mindful all the time. Let’s wash our hands frequently and use hand sanitizer or alcohol if water is not available. Always keep in mind that avoiding to touch our faces as much as possible is an important step against coronavirus and other viruses.
Comprehension Questions:
- According to the article, what bad habit will make you prone to respiratory infections?
- Who is Dr. Mary-Loiuse McLaws?
- On what material can viruses live longest?
- How does wearing makeup help avoid face touching?
- How many percent of viruses can live for an hour and for three hours based on the article?
Discussion Questions:
- How will you encourage everyone to stop touching their face?
- Do you think wearing gloves and glasses can prevent us from any viruses? Explain your answer.
- What do you think is the best way to stay healthy?
- Why is hand hygiene very important?
- What other preventive measures should we do to avoid getting infected?