COVID-19 Protocols and Policies:

1. You can cancel your appointment anytime with no penalty if you feel sick, if you have a temperature, or if you were exposed to someone that was sick. Since last minute cancellations prevent anyone from taking your time slot, please let me know as possible in case someone is on the waiting list.

2. I'll be wearing a mask at all times, and I ask that you please put on your mask before you enter the spa.

3. I'll be disinfecting doorknobs, chairs, counters, etc. between appointments, as well as the bathroom key every time it's touched.

4. A HEPA air purifier will be running all day in the massage room near the head of the table. This filter reduces up to 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold spores, and allergens as small as .3 microns from the air. The UV C light inside the air purifier helps kill airborne viruses such as Influenza, staph, and rhinovirus.

5. Please wash your hands (or use the hand sanitizer in the room) before you get on the table.

6. I will no longer be hugging after appointments. This change hurts me more than it hurts you. As you know, I'm a hugger. :(

7. I've extending the time between massage appointments from 30 min. to 45 min. to give me even more time to sanitize before and after. This will reduce how many appointments can be scheduled so make sure you book in advance to get the time you want!

8. In between appointments the entire room will be treated with a UV C light to disinfect all the surfaces.

9. If you have any requests for further protections please feel free to ask. I'm here to help you feel better and have peace of mind.

I’m looking forward to your visit!

-Heather Karr Johnson, CMT

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How UV light kills microbes:

Viruses don’t reproduce on their own, but they do have genetic material, either DNA or RNA. They reproduce by attaching to cells and injecting their DNA. Some viruses burst out of the infected cell, while others merge into the infected cell, reproducing every time that cell divides.

If you’ve ever gotten a sunburn, you’ve had a taste of how UV light kills viruses: UV light can damage DNA. A DNA molecule is made of two strands bound together by four bases, adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). These bases are like an alphabet, and their sequence forms instructions for cells to reproduce.

UV light can cause thymine bases to fuse together, scrambling the DNA sequence and essentially throwing a wrench into the machinery. Since the DNA sequence is no longer correct, it can no longer replicate properly. This is how UV light annihilates viruses, by destroying their ability to reproduce.

Can UV light kill COVID-19?

COVID-19 is a new breed, and as such there is a dearth of studies on its resistance to UV. We can look to previous coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS, for insight. Studies on both SARS and MERS both shows that UV light could inactivate the viruses, so it’s not unreasonable to expect that it will have a similar effect on COVID-19.