To be worried about postman interaction?

[Worryingworriergal]

I suffer from severe health anxiety in general anyway. This coronavirus situation has made this much worse. Today the postman knocked on the door, he stood back when I answered but was probably on a metre away. We had maybe a 10 second conversation. He was trying to deliver a parcel to the wrong house. I explained and he went away.
I haven’t left the house in 3 weeks, not even to exercise or shop. We have been lucky with online deliveries and have a big enough garden so I have minimised our risk of catching anything to as low as possible. This postman interaction is really playing on my mind. AIBU to think this is how we could all catch it and undo all of my hard work?

If you were that likely to catch it from the postie (or the mail/parcels), there would be none left as we'd all have infected each other.

Calm down and stop posting anxiety inducing guff on here.

You know fine well you didn’t catch anything from your postman and there’s no one on here who can advise you one way or another because they weren’t there.

I'm sorry for your anxiety but you really have to try to look rationally at things. Do you have children? If so, please don't pass this on to them!

No need to be a dick @SlipSlidin

OP, you could catch it but you also could not. That’s the risk we take with stuff atm.

We have a box outside the postie can leave parcels. We pick them up and wash them down or leave them there depending on how urgently we need them.

@Purpleclownsuit

No I’m not “being a dick”. The op is being ridiculous and needs told.

Every other thread on here is full of hysterical misinformation and panic inducing nonsense. It needs to be shut down.

You’re hugely unlikely to catch it from something so brief, and 1m is still a decent distance away. Sorry to hear that your health anxiety is so debilitating.

Does anyone know what the risk actually is rather than telling I’m being over anxious?

Think how the postman feels having to go to work and that hundreds of times everyday - but they are still doing it.

It might be best if you don’t answer the door to anyone from now on if it causes you to spiral

There's no answer to your question. There's no number or percentage we can give. All we can do is say it's incredibly unlikely. If you have severe health anxiety, there's probably nothing any of us can say that will realistically help you.

No they don’t, because they weren’t there.

I could tell you the risk is really low but I don't think that would stop you worrying. Anxiety is like that.

Try and distract yourself.Watch something absorbing.

All the best.

The original risk was for more than 15min at less than 2m for tracing of contacts.
You were way under the 15min bit.
The chances of the postman having covid 19, combined with you chance if oi king anything up from a brief interaction are slim to none.

Does anyone know what the risk actually is rather than telling I’m being over anxious?

Surely your anxiety is more relevant here than the exact risk - the risk is low, and right now your anxiety is causing you more problems than Covid 19 itself. As a pp said, try and distract yourself. And next time if you answer the door and feel someone is too close it’s perfectly reasonable to ask them to step away a little more. The postman should understand.

I thought this was gonna be a I shagged the postman thread. Very disappointing 😀

Thank you all the helpful posters. I’m not sat in the garden with a cup of tea and DH has told me that the risks are teeny tiny. He’s a statistician so should know, but then my anxiety says he is just trying to reassure me and not necessarily being truthful so wanted to double check on here.

Why aren't you worried about getting your food delivered, if you are so worried about an interaction with a postman that didn't even deliver anything to you? Have you not had any of your own mail delivered in 3 weeks?

Your dh is a statistician yet you chose to ask randoms on aibu? Ok then.

Because the boxes from greengrocers I’ve had delivered leave them in the drive and text me to say that they are there I then wear gloves and detol everything before putting it away. Mail wise it’s left for 3 days before opening. So this is the closest contact I’ve had with a stranger for weeks and the biggest risk. Both me and DH have been working from home since beginning of March.

Slip seeing as you continue to be rude. I had already asked DH he had told me how low the risk was. I wanted to double check with strangers in case he as someone who loves me was telling me what I needed to hear.

Wow. How do you remember which letters were delivered which day?

Why do you think your dh would lie to you?

If you are prone to overthinking then CV is a disaster for you. I am trying to stay rational. And there are things we just don't know-nobody knows.

There does seem to be a lot of misinformation on MN at the moment as a PP said.

OP you’re being ridiculous, you need strangers on the internet to tell you that at the very least.

Threads like yours only cause anxiety in others.

Get some perspective and give us all a break.

Yes I’m being ridiculous. Health anxiety has ruined my life for years. I had sepsis 7 years ago and nearly died. Ever since then I’m just waiting for my luck to run out. This has made me even more unwell, except I can’t get any help. My normal counsellor only now offers appointments via email or phone and neither of which seem to be helping at all.