7 Tips to Stay Sanitary at Tournaments

Given the recent concerns over the COVID-19 virus and the lack of medical information regarding the virus, players should take precautions to avoid potential infection of themselves and others when attending tournaments. Here are seven tips to stay clean and sanitary at tournaments.

1. Wash your hands before and after the tournament. The Center for Disease Control recommends that we wash our hands for at least 20 seconds under soap and running water to kill as many germs as possible. Don’t forget to scrub between and on the sides of your fingers, and the lesser-used parts of your hand.
2. Sanitize your controller and hands between sets. As Smash players, we spend much of our time at tournaments playing or otherwise touching our controllers. Thoroughly sanitizing our controllers and cords prevent the possibility of infection or reinfection down the road.
3. No handshakes, only fistbumps. According to Harvard Medical School, handshakes spread ten times as many germs as a simple fistbump. Keep it simple with a bump.
4. Wash your face before the tournament using a facial cleanser. Oils and greases accumulate on our faces throughout the day, and in a crowded venue area with poor air conditioning it’s not uncommon to start sweating. Make sure you aren’t spreading around more germs than necessary by wiping down your face with a facial cleanser chemical or wipe before the tournament.
5. When showering before the tournament, thoroughly lather and rinse your hair with a dandruff-resistant shampoo. Dandruff are some of the largest skin byproducts that can spread, and they are often picked up by air ventilation and broken up into the air. Limit your own dandruff with showering and shampooing regularly.
6. Keep a distance when talking to other players. Germs can spread through breath, so be polite and keep a distance. The American Surgeon General has encouraged the public to stop buying face masks because they are ineffective against the spread of COVID-19, so don’t worry about buying a mask. Just keep a distance.
7. Don’t touch the setups that aren’t yours. Everyone will be using lots of different setups, making them a hotbed for potential infection. If you didn’t bring the setup, don’t touch it or touch it as little as possible. If you did bring the setup, please sanitize it before and after the tournament.

Are there other tips you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments below!

 

Rule no.1: Take a shower

 

Rule no.2 Just freaking do your Normal hygiene but 10 times more

 

Don't cough or sneeze directly at people, or even openly. Cover those with your arm.