Coronavirus: A Poker Player’s Guide

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed more people than the four years of world war had before it. The 2019-nCoV virus is nowhere near that level of deadly, but you still don’t want to expose yourself to more risk than you need to.

If you’re going to visit crowded card rooms, here are a few tips to keep yourself from getting infected.

1. Wash Your Hands Regularly

Coughs and sneezes do spread diseases, but in actual fact even respiratory diseases like COVID-19 are primarily spread by touching a surface with the virus on. 

Chips and cards both work well as such surfaces. The best protection against picking the virus up along with your winnings, is to wash your hands with soap and hot water regularly and avoid touching your face.

2. Cover Your Mouth, But Not With Your Hands

As with the common cold you can reduce your risk of transmission by sneezing into a tissue or, in the absence of that, your elbow. 

This keeps your hands away from your nose and mouth. Like hand washing, this reduces the chance of you receiving the virus by hand. As a bonus, if you are ill, you are less likely to pass it on.

3. Avoid Players With Cold Symptoms

COVID-19 presents like the flu, which means fever, runny noses, coughing and sneezing. If someone at your table is looking a little peaky, it might be time to head home. 

It most likely will be the flu or a cold, but odds are pretty good you’d rather avoid catching those diseases too.