By Wendi Rank

There’s good news for all us germophobes.

And yes, I’m including all the latecomers who only became germophobes once the new coronavirus arrived. Welcome. But don’t shake my hand.

The Texas Medical Association COVID-19 Task Force and the Committee on Infectious Diseases ranked the inherent dangers of select activities in a chart released this week. Task force and committee physicians guided the ratings.

Activities are rated with the concession all safety guidelines are practiced. The diagram uses a scale of 1 to 10 and is also available in Spanish.

Higher contact with commonly touched surfaces, being close to those outside your household, or being indoors appear to affect rankings.

Activities with minimal contact, such as getting takeout or playing tennis, received a ranking of two. High-touch activities involving numerous strangers, like amusement parks or movie theaters, are way up at eight.

Swimmers may be disappointed to know beaches were ranked at five, public pools at six. Shaking hands gets a seven.

See? I told you to keep your hands to yourself.

Buffets, in a surprise to no germophobe anywhere, are an eight. Good thing, since gyms are also an eight. The seemingly opposite activities of highly attended church services and hitting the bar sit at level nine.

We can keep ourselves – and everyone else – safer by adhering to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. Limiting contacts, washing hands, wearing masks, and keeping six feet of distance are just some of the moves that keep us safer.

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