How to move safely during the pandemic

You probably don’t need to wear a mask to get off your old fridge on the third floor with the help of your best friend, as it serves as physical barrier against the bacilli.

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June 27, 2020 10: 23 a.m.

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How to move safely during the pandemic

Jean-Benoit Legault

The canadian Press

MONTREAL – The edition 2020 of the festival of the moves takes on a whole new look this year in Quebec, while the coronavirus is invited into our boxes, our trucks and our stairs.

But don’t worry-you probably won’t need to wear a mask to get off your old fridge on the third floor with the help of your best friend.

“The refrigerator serves as the physical barrier, because we are of each side, said dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, CHU Sainte-Justine. The sides of the fridge are going to stop our droplets, as if we had a plexiglass between the two of us.”

If it is a question of co-tenants or members of the same family who all leave together to live elsewhere, it can also be a little let your guard down, since one has to deal with people who have come together from the outset all the days, ” she continues.

Otherwise, the usual precautions – such as wearing a mask and respect a distance of at least one meter, but optimally two – will remain in place.

“If there is a meter, you do not cry in the ears of each other because it is certain that it is projected more at this time,” said dr. Quach.

In addition, it is necessary to keep in mind that the risk of transmission is relatively low in a contact of ten minutes or less, she adds. When this is possible, so we work each in his place, if not back-to-back. If exchanges face-to-face are necessary, you proceed as quickly as possible.

The most important thing is to ensure that all those involved in the move are in perfect health. At the slightest worrying sign, writes dr. Quach is better to abstain.

“If anything it was the nose scratch or the scratchy throat, which could be symptoms precursor of the COVID, we pass our turn and send someone else to help,” she asked.

New living space

The household that one would normally do when arriving in a new living space should be sufficient to eliminate the virus if it is present.

Current scientific data show that the risk of transmission through contaminated surfaces is less than the risk of transmission by infected droplets.

“It exists anyway, if someone has just done a big ‘apitchoum’ on the door of the fridge and put the hand over, said dr. Quach. Otherwise, the regular household that we would be doing by entering into an apartment to get rid of all the rest, and not only of the COVID, it is enough. The virus is sensitive to all cleaning products.”

Unless the previous occupant had been sick and he was coughing his lungs, once the furniture has been taken out, the doors and windows have been opened, and that the air will have circulated, the virus that was potentially hanging in the air will have been sufficiently diluted so that it can move with peace of mind.

That being said, it is possibly after the move that the danger of infection will be the most important, according to dr. Quach.

“Where the risk of transmission of the COVID is the largest is when we sit down all together to eat pizza (or salad) and drink his beer (or champagne), next to each other (or face) in congratulating ourselves on having survived, she added in an email. This is where the guard falls and the risk of getting infected. Message: we eat together, outside, but it ensures they stay (two meters) of the other.”

Le Soleil