Health & safety is serious but it doesn't have to be complicated

As the Coronavirus (COVID19) continues to affect corporates and businesses around Australia, we are taking extra precautions to ensure the overall safety and hygiene across your office when it comes to all of your office catering and staff meals.

The workplace itself can easily turn into a breeding ground of disease-causing germs: even your office desk contains 400 times more bacteria than a toilet seat.

Here are a few tips and tricks (that you haven't seen yet) to eliminate the spread of the virus and bacteria in your workplace or at home:

1. Wash and scrub your hands regularly with soap. Lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails for more than 20 seconds. That's equivalent to singing 'Happy birthday' twice. This allows the soap to work its magic and get rid of the possible contaminating bacteria. Please be especially mindful as we shortly head into flu season!

2. Washing your hands is one thing, but did you ever think about wiping and cleaning your mobile phone too? It's not often we even consider washing our phones, so just be mindful to keep it clean as statistically on average we touch our phones at least 85 times per day. There are a lot of anti-bactierial wipes you can use that work really well!

3. You've probably been told to carry hand sanitisers everywhere you go, and to ensure that you're cleaning your hands at least twice an hour. Anti-bacterial hand sanitisers include a high alcohol concentration levels to help break down and kill germs on your skin. But did you know that you will need a hand sanitiser with at least 60% alcohol to be effective at killing germs?

4. Did you know there are certain foods that can help boost your immune system? If you're looking for ways to prevent winter colds and the flu, your first step is to visit your local grocery store. Here are a few types of powerful foods that will help boost your immune system:

   • Citrus fruits (grapefruit, oranges, lemons & tangerines)
   • Red Capsicums (they actually contain twice the amount of citrus than citrus fruits!)
   • Broccoli (not only packed with vitamin C, but also vitamins A & E as well)
   • Ginger (helps decrease inflammation, sore throat and nausea)
   • Papaya (one single papaya contains 224% of the daily recommended amount of vitamin C)

5. Last but not least, its probably best to avoid sensationalist language that could cause elevated levels of fear. There are a lot of speculations on hypothetical worst-case scenarios which can and currently is causing a whole lot of panic. Instead, direct people to official sources of information. Remember that not ever rumour deserves coverage.

We really hope that you were able to get something out of this article today. If you have any further questions or would like to know more information, there is a Coronavirus health information line that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - 1800 020 080.