My daily commute is making me paranoid.

As COVID-19 spreads, I have become hyperconscious of how close I am to others, the things I touch and if they could make me sick.

What do I touch on an average commute? Turns out pretty much everything. Then what do I do with my hands? What else? I touch my face — a lot.

I convinced Star digital producer Braydon Holmyard to follow me to work, making notes on my “touch points” and then what I do next over the course of three streetcar transfers.

Next, I enlisted the help of Cynthia Carr, an epidemiologist and health policy expert, and Dr. Monika Dutt, a physician who works in public heath, to critique my commute and tell me how I should change my behaviour to stay healthy.

I admit, this is an imperfect experiment: I knew I was being watched but tried to honestly follow my impulses. If I needed to touch a handrail on the streetcar in order to keep my balance, I did. I sanitized my hands when the urge struck, more often than I would have in the past.

Here’s a breakdown of what we recorded, in five-minute intervals.

8:35 a.m.

I touched my face before getting on the streetcar. Then I pulled out my wallet to tap my Presto.

I touched four bars to steady myself on the way to a seat, then tucked my hair behind my ear.

Carr said the need to touch the bars is an exercise in risk reduction. “If we take the messaging too far about possible spread of virus through contaminated surfaces, we risk making other decisions that are more likely to harm us,” she said. “The bars that you touched to balance yourself are there exactly for that reason — public safety.”

From a risk reduction standpoint, touching the bars is safer than a fall.

I took my backpack off, put it on my lap and sat down.

I sat beside one person on this streetcar.

“Droplet transmission of infections can occur when you’re close to someone,” Dutt said. “You do often need to be around people and often those social interactions are important. But if you see someone coughing, try to sit at least one metre away from them if possible.”

8:40 a.m.

I fix my hair.

Touching my hair bothers Carr and Dutt less than some of my other behaviours. “An infection getting from the back (or) side of your head” into the eyes or mouth would be less likely, Dutt said.

I pull out my phone to check a message.

“We know that phones can have bacteria and viruses on them,” Dutt said. “We handle them all the time and rarely clean them. Consider cleaning your phone occasionally and of course wash your own hands regularly.”

I touch my chin.

“This is real life and you have not touched your mouth, nose or eyes,” Carr said.

My chin is too close to my mouth, Dutt points out, warning me to avoid the area.

8:45 a.m.

I get off the streetcar to transfer and pull a strand of hair out of my mouth.

The wind is blowing, which means I am constantly moving my hair out of my face while walking to the next stop.

These two points are “slightly higher risk,” Carr said. But I didn’t put my hands in my mouth. “You are pulling your hair out of your mouth — you are not putting your hands in your mouth.”

It’s important to “be reasonable,” Dutt said. “This type of thing happens. We don’t need to be completely obsessed.”

Until we do.

I touch my face.

“Noooo!!!” Dutt wrote.

“Not ideal,” Carr said. “It is a habit to keep working on, and most importantly avoid your mouth, nose and eyes.”

I, finally, use some hand sanitizer while waiting for the streetcar.

Carr said I should have used the hand sanitizer before the face touch. “According to statistics you are going to touch your face again so this will be helpful for the next time,” she said.

8:55 a.m.

Pull out my wallet and presto, then tap to transfer.

“Good examples of the daily items we touch regularly and never clean,” Dutt said.

Remove my backpack and put it on my lap before sitting down alone next to a window.

“You use these items daily and often put these items down on surfaces when you are paying for things ... If you don’t keep (clean) the items” you touch all day long, it provides a vehicle for germs to reach you, Carr said.

Someone gets on and sits directly beside me. Someone else sits down across from me. There’s also someone sitting close behind me, less than one metre away.

Dutt said droplet transmission is possible within two metres. She said it is something to keep in mind — “especially if someone is coughing or sneezing.”

I inexplicably touch the window.

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“Smooth hard surfaces are happy places for viruses,” Dutt said.

Scratched an itch under my eye.

“Your eyes are a particularly easy surface for viruses to enter,” Dutt said, noting that anything I picked up on the window could now be transferred to my face.

The proximity of these two actions is possibly my riskiest behaviour, Carr said. “People sitting by the window are often looking that way which means they are often breathing on the window ... if someone were to cough or sneeze in that direction, there could be respiratory droplets on that window,” she said. That said, though, it’s unclear how long droplets containing a virus could survive on the window.

9 a.m.

I text.

“Given our phones are often attached to our hands, we should be more conscious of keeping (them) clean,” Dutt said.

I unconsciously touch my lip, then continue texting.

“It is possible that when you used the phone this time, you may have come back in contact with that virus and then transmitted it to your mouth,” Carr said. Her advice? Just keep sanitizing the phone as often as possible.

Flipping through my purse to find my hand sanitizer. When I finally find it, I use it.

“Great!” Dutt said. “Sanitizer can be as effective as soap and water when hands are not visibly soiled.”

Our streetcar is short-turning, so I press the stop button and need to hold a bar to steady myself.

“Many, many hands touch both of these items,” Dutt reminds me.

At the streetcar stop, I check my phone while we wait for the final transfer — a 10-minute wait.

9:15 a.m.

Very tight quarters on third and final streetcar. We manage to sneak on through the back doors, but we’re extremely close to about five others.

Neither expert was as worried about the sardine-can ride as I expected: since no one was coughing or sneezing, risk was low.

I text again.

We are at the final stop and get off at an underground terminal.

There are stairs, but I don’t touch the railing while I’m walking up. At the top, I sanitize my hands.

“Hand sanitizer is good,” Dutt said, especially due to how many things I touched.

Coffee time. I open the door to the coffee shop and pick up my cup from the mobile-order counter.

“Even if regularly cleaned, door handles are definitely ‘high-touch’ surfaces,” Dutt explained.

“Ideally you would sanitize your hands after opening that door,” Carr said.

Arrival at work.

According to both experts, it’s time to wash my hands aggressively.

“Keep washing your hands (and) using hand sanitizer, keep sufficient space between you and others ... and try not to touch your face,” Dutt said.

“Wash your hands with hot water and soap for at least 20 seconds as soon as you arrive at work,” Carr recommended. “Sanitize your phone now too.”

“You touched your face seven times in 30 minutes,” Carr points out in an email. “There is a huge range of estimates about how many times an hour or day people touch their faces.”

Carr stressed it is important to remember that touching your hair or the side of your face isn’t how the virus enters your system.

“It doesn’t enter your body through your hair or skin. The mode of entry is your mucus membranes — primarily the mouth and nose,” Carr said.