Not touching your face

[Bodoni]

I expect this has been discussed before but the threads move so fast.

Apart from being coughed or sneezed on directly, touching your face is mainly how you catch it - your hand picks up the virus from a hard surface, you scratch your nose/rub your eye etc., then the virus gets into the receptors in your lungs.

Very hard to remember not to touch your face though. Ideas I’ve read online include wearing a surgical mask (they’re no protection otherwise), woolly gloves, big glasses. Make-up. I’d wondered about Elizabethan ruffs and cones of shame … Any other ideas?

I struggle with this. Always have a itchy eye

I also struggle with this, I think I might soon start wearing marigolds when I go out as they are easily washed and I am unlikely to touch my face with a rubber glove on my hand. Cotton gloves are more discreet but difficult to wash when out and about. At the moment I am wearing my usual winter leather gloves and take one off if I wanted to touch my face but they are not easily washable

I only remember that I'm not supposed to touch my face after I've actually touched it

The same as Deadbod!

Me too. Online advice is to be aware and maybe eventually you remember. Good idea about Marigolds Mrs L - might get funny looks or maybe people will decide to copy!

Same as DeadBod here too. The second I remember I mustn't touch my face I get an itchy nose, or feel something in my eye. I'm doomed, aren't I?

Big mittens?

Actually I read that there’s some evidence that wearing a surgical mask makes you touch your face even more because you’re likely to keep fiddling with it

I don't know how the hell you're meant to stop touching your face. With the best will in the world you'll still get an eye that needs wiping, an itchy nose etc etc. It's impossible.

I can't do this. I have dry skin and allergies and long hair and basically constantly feel like I've got fleas with all the itching.

Ok, out at work all day, I come home and scrub my hands. Can I then start fiddling with my face again?

I can't stop touching my face because I know I shouldn't! Keep getting little itches

I now have an itchy eye AND nose

I have tics that come and go and often one of them involves touching my face. I can't mentally or physically stop them. At the moment my facial tick is a movement rather than with hand contact so long may that last.

I set myself the task of not touching my face when I did a supermarket shop and failed within the first five minutes. It’s hopeless as it’s so automatic. That and the desire to constantly check my phone.

can you touch your face with a tissue?

There’s this - train your computer to shout at you if you touch your face: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/06/dont-touch-your-face-website-tracks-you-to-help-you-avoid-covid-19
Might be useful if you take your laptop to a potentially germy environment, or you put it on your work computer in a potentially germy office.
Not much point if you’re at home and washed your hands when you came in: you can fiddle with your face all you like then.

EnidBlyton: if you have the virus on your hands, will you have transferred it to the tissue when you get it out though? The virus prefers a hard surface so I don’t know the answer.

I'm thinking clunky gloves - wool or Marigolds - are the answer when out and about

I'm always getting itchy eyes and I bite my nails there is literally no hope for me lol