My Household SOP

In just a few days, many parents would be sending their children to kindergarten or after-school care center as our government has allowed the reopening of these institutions starting July onwards. I believe many parents are struggling with a mixture of complicated feeling: some may feel relieved finally to have their young kids sent to the educational institution that they can now return to their workplace without the worries of finding a caretaker; some may feel anxious to 'let go' of their children after keeping them at home for about 3 months; while some paranoid parents who would still prefer to keep their children safe at home. Being a mother of two young kids, I belong to the paranoid parents' group, too!

With the gradual and progressive reopening of more and more sectors in our country, the crucial key is Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). No matter which sectors, employers, managers, and leaders are required to adhere to SOP for the reopening of their businesses or services. Therefore, the new normal for everyone is having sets of SOP at workplaces, schools, daycare centers, dining areas, gymnasiums, and the list goes on and on. Working parents may need to switch their minds constantly to different sets of SOP as they attend different functions in a day: SOP at working office, SOP for preparing their schooling children, SOP for sending and fetching their young kids at the daycare center, SOP for meeting clients outside the office and many other possible SOP of going to different venues or stations.

Now the question is, do you have your own set of SOP for your home to safeguard your family from COVID-19 after the pandemic lockdown? We can have various SOP at different stations of our daily lives, but why there is no SOP for our homes, the only place where we usually call it a day and retreat for a good rest before another day of battle? This is a good question for us to ponder.

Photo Source: Glenn Carstens-Peters (Unsplash)

My husband and I are the paranoid types with the whole pandemic issue. Partially our educational background has made us be on the extra-careful side, thanks to all the microbiology, epidemiology, pathology subjects we had in university back then. Being trained as a nurse in the past, my knowledge of infection control has attributed to stricter precautions of infection and disease for my family even before the pandemic.

Our house rules for infection control include whoever returns home from outside should take a shower and change into a clean set of clothes regardless of how late it is, no exception even for our young kids. We are very stern with our kids that upon reaching home, their bottoms should not land on the sofa in the living room. This means no lazing on the sofa once returning home from outside. The bed mattress is STRICTLY PROHIBITED not matter how tired they are. First and foremost upon reaching home, everyone should take a shower and change into clean clothes.

Yes, it may sound a little overdone but please don't judge my compulsive obsession with cleanliness. I just do not want to mess around with the stress of having sick children. It's too stressful and costly in terms of money (paediatrician fees is not cheap nowadays), time (children fall sick means our works affected), and sleep (sleepless nights for parents when children are ill). The house rules above are implemented all the while before the pandemic of COVID-19. We are seriously applying such stricter precautions as numerous diseases like HFMD, Influenza, AGE are always a threat to young kids. Stricter precautions are what we can do to break the chain of whatever infections.

Photo Source: Kevin Baquerizo (Unsplash)

Way forward to the current post lockdown season, both my husband and I know that we cannot be hiding our children in the safe cave of our home forever. As we are in the Recovery Movement Control Order (RCMO), we want to start preparing our children to build their resilience. To do so, we have started our 'training' with them bit by bit, stage by stage, and one simple step at a time. For your information, we have two young kids below 12 years old, therefore instructions must be given in a clear simple way.

So far, we have stipulated a set of simple SOP for our home. These guidelines are subjected to addition, modification, and improvisation from time to time. You may refer and adopt our SOP for your perusal if you think it would be helpful for your family.

My Household SOP

Disclaimer: These guidelines are solely stipulated by myself based on my personal experience and preferred level of hygiene, without accreditation from any authority. So, please refer and adapt to your discretion.

Before going out

1. Bring your hand sanitizer

2. Wear your face mask and face shield (if required)

3. Bring as minimal things as possible, as we need to sanitize those belongings later after back home.

4. Check body temperature, cancel the trip if you're not feeling well or having a fever (above 37.5 degrees Celsius).

5. If it is just a short trip, have your children empty their bladders or bowels before going out. We TRY to avoid using the public toilet for now.

Upon reaching home

1. Before entering the indoor area, take off your shoes and please wear a pair of clean socks (which we have prepared earlier and put near our home entrance area). This is to make sure no soiled feet touch on the clean floor inside the house.

2. Immediately walk into the bathroom.

3. Take off soiled clothes, underwear, and socks and turn them inside out and discard them into a pail (prepared in each bathroom).

4. Take a thorough clean shower of yourself.

5. After the shower, transfer the soiled clothes into the laundry machine for washing.

6. Sanitize belongings from outside (eg: school bags, water bottles, goodies, etc) with Lysol spray or antibacterial wipes.

For working parent:

1. Wear face mask and face shield at the workplace [this is subject to your nature of work or your company's SOP]. For my husband, his work nature involves a lot of social interaction. So he must wear both face mask and face shield.

2. A social distancing (1 - 1.5 meter) sensor device might be helpful and necessary. We are still working on this, my husband would love to explore more on setting up such a micro-electronic gadget.

3. After work and before adjourning home, change into a clean set of clothes (remove the soiled clothes and turn them inside out and keep inside a recyclable washable bag).

Photo Source: Anshu A (Unsplash)

SOP is more than just wearing a face mask, wash hands frequently, and using hand sanitizer. I feel that we should look beyond adhering to SOP just for the requirements of various authorities. A proper and stringent SOP should rise from within ourselves and for our social responsibilities. This is to safeguard not only ourselves or our loved ones but everyone in our community!

As our Health director-general Datuk Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah is optimistic about achieving zero cases in July, may we play our roles well to make it a reality. Remember, Malaysia Boleh and we are Malaysian!