Welcome back warriors, I think it is a good time to go over how to stay healthy. Unless your Jared Letto you probably heard of COVID-19. After reading today’s post you will be more prepared to keep yourself safe and the people around you.
Now more than ever it is important to be aware of communicable diseases. You might ask your self how you as an officer can avoid being contaminated or exposed to diseases. The short answer is you can’t, but you can do is minimize your risk. One way to do this is through personal protective equipment. (P.P.E.) Now your choice of P.P.E. should be based on what type of situation you find yourself in. Allow me to clarify you should have P.P.E. for all types of situations available, but if your situation doesn’t warrant a certain type Of P.P.E. then obviously you don’t have to wear it. Let’s say as an example, you are responding to a car crash. It would be safe to remove your tactical gloves and dawn a pair of latex gloves instead, as the latex gloves will provide you more protection from blood born diseases. Now in the case of COVID-19 latex gloves are not going to be enough. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them. It just means you are going to need added protection. That being said you need to have disposable face masks available to you. Now if there is a shortage of respirator masks you may have to get ingenuitive and fabricate some sort of substitute. Now the thing to remember when using these masks is that they are one situation use. Once the need is over make sure you properly dispose of the mask, I mean for the love of God do not just through them in the back of your cruiser for future use.
Ok, let’s say you used all your P.P.E. and somehow you believe that you became contaminated or exposed to COVID-19 or some other disease. What do you do next? Well, you should seek immediate medical attention and first aid for starters. But in the case of COVID-19, you might not know your infected until you start to show symptoms. So how should you handle this situation? The same way you should have been handling it before.
- Avoid close proximity to other people when you can.
- Properly wash your hands on a regular base or after coming in contact with someone else. Hand sanitizer is a secondary option.
- Avoid touching your face. If you find yourself touching on or around your face wash your hands.
This last thing is very important. If you suspect that you have been exposed to COVID-19 you need to notify your supervisor and avoid work. I understand that it is very inconvenient to miss work. Trust me I do! But you could severely jeopardize the operational readiness of your department. And that is not good for your department, anybody that won’t receive help because your department cant help them or you.
That wraps up today’s activities. Below I’m attaching a link to the CDC website, I strongly recommend you look at it. If you have any comments or questions feel free to fire them off. And as always especially in these troubling times, stay safe.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html
