Wash your hands
The World Health Organization’s advice is for people to wash their hands at least five times a day with soap and water or hand sanitiser.
Friction, experts say, is the key to scrubbing off any signs of infection.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson today insisted the public should remember to wash their hands frequently, while singing Happy Birthday twice.
Proper handwashing involves rubbing the palms together, rubbing the backs of the hands, interlocking fingers both backwards and forwards, scrubbing the thumbs and washing the fingertips.
Avoid hugs and hand-shakes
Keeping people apart is one of the main ways governments can attempt to stop the spread of the virus – what officials call ‘social distancing measures’.
In Italy, France and Switzerland, for example, public gatherings of large groups of people have been cancelled or banned.
And the French government has urged people to avoid ‘la bise’ – the traditional greeting of kissing someone on either cheek – and not to shake hands.
Health minister Olivier Veran said: ‘The reduction in social contacts of a physical nature is advised. That includes the practice of the bise,’ Bloomberg reported.
It comes as Germany’s interior minister today refused to shake Angela Merkel’s hand today amid a growing coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Resort to ‘air handshakes’
The handshake is becoming a taboo greeting among workers, as employees and clients fear the spread of coronavirus in the workplace.
A motivational speaker and presentation coach has now devised the ‘air handshake’ because of the ‘unfolding coronavirus situation’.
Richard McCann hosted an event in Leeds on Saturday and later posted a video that showed him greeting a man with an air handshake.
Posting to his social media accounts, Mr McCann questioned whether was being paranoid for not shaking the hands of those attending his £300 per-ticket event.
Wear gloves
Experts say the most common way the coronavirus is thought to spread is by people touching surfaces which have been contaminated by an infected patient.
This works by somebody who has got the disease coughing or sneezing onto their hand, then touching a surface while they have the viruses on their hands.
The viruses then survive on that surface – such as a doorknob or a handrail on a train – and are picked up by the next person who touches it, who then touches their face and transfers the virus into their mouth, nose or eyes.
Beware doorknobs, lift buttons and handrails
‘The lifts and the public toilets, these are the places where I would be very, very careful about touching any surfaces to not risk a coronavirus infection.’
He said that a lift was a particularly high risk place because everybody is trapped breathing the same air and having to press the same buttons.
One tip he saw on social media suggested pushing lift buttons with a pen rather than a finger. According to Alistair Miles, an Oxford University researcher, everyone should stop touching their faces.
He said in a tweet: ‘Stop touching your face. Especially stop touching your eyes, nose or mouth. This is much much harder than it sounds, and takes practice. But if you start practising now, you will quickly get a lot better at it.’