Improve your daily hygiene
WITH the recent outbreak of another new coronavirus variant, JN.1 sub variant, maintaining the cleanliness of your surroundings to prevent contracting the virus is very important.
This is why health authorities here have again stressed the importance and responsibility of cleanliness.
On January 5, the Health Ministry released a statement addressing the above while sharing ways we can protect ourselves and our loved ones.
Some of these areas include taking care of your personal hygiene, ventilation and vaccination.
Frequent sanitizing of surfaces help remove and kill bacteria that breeds diseases and harmful germs.
There are many ways to disinfect and cleanse surfaces.
Healthpartners.com shares some tips for cleaning and disinfecting your home.
When we're vigorously scrubbing, spraying, wiping and vacuuming, we want to know that our efforts are paying off.
Take notes on these tips for the most effective ways to clean and disinfect to keep sickness away.
1. Keep your hands clean
One of the best ways to keep your home germ free is to stop it from coming home in the first place. To do so, wash your hands often.
We hear it all the time, "Wash your hands and don't touch your face."
2. Disinfect your phone
Your phone is one of your most-touched belongings, meaning the chances of it being contaminated with the flu virus or another nasty microbe are higher.
Our phones tend to stay with us all day, going wherever we go. When you bring it home, it brings with it all the germs of where you've been, like a microbial passport.
Note: Antibacterial wipes aren't great for your phone.
Instead, you can use a lint-free cloth and a mixture of equal parts water and isopropyl alcohol.
Try to disinfect your phone daily or weekly.
3. Focus on the frequently used areas
Make sure the areas that get used often (like the kitchen and bathroom) and things that are frequently touched (like doorknobs, fridge door handles and remotes) are cleaned and disinfected either daily or every few days.
It's also a good idea to regularly disinfect toys, electronics – including your computer mouse and keyboard – and faucet handles, especially during the winter months, since the flu virus can live on them for several hours.
4. Take your shoes off when you get home
We bring a lot of germs home on the bottom of our shoes.
Keep those germs outside where they belong by taking your shoes off right as you enter your home or someone else's. Place a shoe rack near your most-heavily trafficked entryway so you and your guests have an organized and appealing area to put shoes.
5. Use the right products
What you use to clean can make or break your cleaning efforts.
In addition to choosing the right products, you have to choose and maintain the right tools.
Sponges, rags and mops can become filthy after just a few uses, and sometimes paper towel or disinfectant wipes are the most sanitary options because you can just toss them when you're done (like in the case of toilet cleaning).
In between jobs, make sure you're washing your sponges, rags and mops regularly with boiling hot water to disinfect them.
6. Become a laundry machine
Most people choose one day during the week on which to do all their laundry, but if the mountain of dirty clothes you're faced with each laundry day is too daunting, you can choose to do just one load of laundry every day.
In addition to your clothes, prioritise washing things that get touched a lot, like throw blankets, duvet covers, bed sheets, bathmats, bath towels, hand and dish towels, and rugs. Use the hot water cycle when appropriate for the material for maximum de-germing.
7. Always tidy up after cooking
Treat your kitchen like that of a restaurant. Chefs don't leave cookware soaking in the sink all night, nor do they close for the night with a filthy kitchen.
After cooking and eating, don't let the mess linger.
Put the leftovers away, do your dishes, load the dishwasher and wipe down countertops as soon as possible. Your morning self will thank you.
Staying on top of kitchen cleanliness reduces the potential for food borne pathogens spreading through your space.
And don't forget your kitchen table and refrigerator: wipe down the places where you eat daily and give your fridge a deep clean (with disinfectant) every three to four months.
8. Make cleaning easy so that you're more likely to do it
Keep cleaning supplies like the disinfecting wipes, dust cloths and vacuum accessible around the house where they're easy to grab.
Storing them in a central, organized place can increase the chances you'll grab them more often.
Another small tip that can make a big difference: Find something that's enjoyable to listen to while you clean, like a favourite playlist, podcast or audiobook.
You might find that you will not dread starting your chores, and you enjoy them more than you expected.
Health Partners also issued timely advice in following a strict routine of disinfecting your home.
Choose a day or time using the most effective strategy.
But remember when someone is sick it is recommended to disinfect and clean your home more frequently until they recover.
BULA vinaka shoppers, The rising cost of living continues to be the biggest issue facing families all over the world today and Fiji is no exception.
Former Reserve Bank of Fiji Governor Savenaca Narube recently explained that the cost of living crisis was a global problem that had its roots in the COVID years as production dropped and the cost of shipping rose.
This has hit everyone badly because of rising unemployment and stagnation in incomes which we face today.
While some companies looked after their staff’s welfare others during the COVID period were forced to reduce the number of hours and days their employees worked so they could afford to retain their staff and sustain their businesses through that period.
People struggled to make ends meet and those that had mortgages and loans had to hold payments because they could not afford to pay up with reduced salaries.
Narube correctly pointed out that in Fiji where poverty was already at its historical peak, the impact of the rise in global prices has led to widespread increases in all domestic items including cassava.
Vili who travels from his village in
Naitasiri to Suva to work says the prices of root crops will keep escalating because men that used to plant have left our shores to work overseas.
“There is no one to farm the land because the men are all going to Australia to work on the farms there for better and more money to send back home,” he said.
A bundle of dalo this week costs $40 in the Suva Market and a sack of tavioka now costs around $120 to $150.
Even the ladies that sell cooked food opposite the bus station have raised concerns about the cost of food crops which they buy from farmers. The demand keeps increasing while production is low.
Narube said the global price increases are now being fully internalised and consumers know that the price of everything is on the rise and it’s rare to find a product whose price has reduced. He said a country must measure the rate of the increase in prices which is called inflation.
“It is simple to calculate the rate of increase of the price of one item. But we need to have a measure of the increase in all items.
“To be able to measure the rate of increase of the prices of all items, the Fiji Bureau of Statistics need to compute an index which is called the Consumer Price Index (CPI).,” he explained.
“To enable the Bureau to compute the rate of increase of the prices of all items, it has to assign weights to each item in the index.
“These weights are determined by how much an average family spends its income on that product.
“For instance, the more money the family spends on cassava, the higher is the weight of cassava in the CPI,” he explained.
Narube said the spending patterns of households are obtained by the Bureau through a survey called the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES) which it undertakes every five years.
The Bureau recently updated the weights of the CPI from the 2019 HIES and the new weights now reflect the change in our spending patterns since 2014.
These new weights though reflect some disturbing trends in how we spend our money. The trend reflects an increase in spending on alcohol, kava, and cigarettes while food has decreased;
Cigarettes are ranked 3rd in the weights just behind tertiary education and rent; Pounded kava is ranked 5th; while the highest ranking food item is cassava at 6th; Fiji Gold beer is 15th and Fiji Bitter was not far behind at 19th while rum has made the top 30.
This leaves food items way down the list. While how we spend our monies remains an individual choice, our shopping trends is a a worry..
Narube urged people to remember that alcohol contributes to family breakups, social tensions, genderbased violence, road deaths, poor work ethics, and mounting health bills.
Kava is the greatest cause of low level of productivity but this is what we are spending more money on as consumers.
As shoppers it is time to re-think our spending trends to ensure we are spending our money wisely in the right places.