New book brought into the house

[CurtainWitcher]

Book delivered by Amazon. I put the packaging straight in the recycling, but brought the book straight into the house. It's now on the coffee table.
DH said I should have put it in the garage for 72 hours. Should i?

Oh for heaven's sake, the OP hasn't got health anxiety just because she takes a reasonable precaution.

Being anxious about catching a virus that we are currently in lockdown over is a reasonable response. Not all worry and fear is bad.

We're quarantining everything because my OH is very vulnerable. It's very easy to take the piss and be smug when you're sat on your Mumsnet high horse. I still have to go to work every day, so I do everything I damn well can to protect him and my kids from this.

Where is the advice from epidemiologists or virologists to clean shopping? I can't find any. Everything I find says it such a tiny risk its not worth it.

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/12/832269202/no-you-dont-need-to-disinfect-your-groceries-but-here-s-to-shop-safely

Fahrenheit 451 - only safe way to deal with that book. Burn it now 🤣

“ Blimey, has common sense been locked down too?”

Yes.

There are posters on here whose parents have got (&sadly some already died from) CV. Some who hadn't been out of the house and the only way they could have caught it was from mail/parcels/shopping deliveries. Do you want to go & tell them it madness or bonkers to quarantine or wash that stuff?

@AmelieTaylor that doesn't make sense. We're only just seeing people with symptoms who contracted it before the lockdown.

Are you saying these people hadn't left the house or had any human contact for over 4-5 weeks?

It wouldn't even occur to me to do anything like that.

I think the extremes some people are going to are unhealthy.

Ways your hands
Don't touch your face
Or you could just burn the book and your whole house down just in case

Wash

My Virologist friend removes outer packaging only outside the home and disposes if it. She does not quarantine items or clean internal packaging.
I trust her judgement.

@BreathlessCommotion it takes 5-14 days to show symptoms, we have been in lockdown for about it 25 days I think.

AmelieTaylor that doesn't make sense. We're only just seeing people with symptoms who contracted it before the lockdown.Are you saying these people hadn't left the house or had any human contact for over 4-5 weeks?

Yes. Not everyone was prattling about waiting for our daft Govt to make it mandatory

Fgs no. Read it, enjoy!

I think the comment about MN is because there are a lot of posters doing quite extreme things with shopping/deliveries. This isn't official advice and I wouldn't give it a thought.

1/2% is a very high death rate for something people are saying everyone.will get. It's not high level maths to see that 690000 people would die even at the lower estimate that's not to mention the roughly 15/20% who are hospitalised.

If the mortality rate is e.g. 1%, it’s 1%. Severe cases in hospital having a higher specific mortality rate doesn’t change the overall 1% rate, they’re included in it. No ‘not to mention’ about it. That’s not high level maths either.

Everyone is different but we put all deliveries in the garage for at least 72 hours, including food and post. Take outer packaging off outside after that and bin outside. Even if there is only a small risk from parcels/deliveries received it doesn’t take long to do and puts my mind at ease. With all the conflicting advice given out at the moment I would rather be on the safe side and perhaps be wasting my time than risk the virus coming into the house.

Read the book. Wash your hands. Job done.

It's too late. Torch the book and the coffee table and then bleach yourself and the rest of the house.

I would have put in in a separate isolation room I use, probably fir a day, then sprayed it all over on the outside with Dettol anti viral, before bringing into the 'safe' zone. Your DH has the right idea I think 👌

dixie oh FFS it's a range and it's obvious that I meant not to mention those who are hospitalised "but don't die". Would it help if I said 14-19%?

Why does it even matter?

I would chuck the packaging, wash hands and get on with reading it.

Yes, there are some people who do genuinely need to exercise particular caution if they, or a family member, are vulnerable.

But there do seem to be an awful lot of posters who are taking things to extremes ie quarantining or ‘sanitising’ their shopping for hours before they allow it in the house, bleaching all their food before they eat it, etc.

I’m actually far more concerned for their state of mind than their chances of contracting the virus.

We’re doing something similar to MeerkatMolly (24 hour quarantine for cardboard / paper things, 72 hours for everything else). And cleaning the door handles and bell and light switches and taps etc with a diluted bleach solution every day. We don’t feel anxious at all, I’m slightly higher risk (so the aim here is not to get COVID, ever) but pretty calm about it. I think, having read what I have, I’d feel more anxious if I didn’t quarantine things.

@dixieflatline.. Ah I've now realised what you are going on about. You are the one who has misunderstood me (but I won't criticise your maths despite your criticism of mine)

15-20% of people who contract covid-19 are hospitalised.

I find some people on here quite complacent.

I just think I'm far more likely to have caught it from the children I was looking after last week, so that their parents could work, than I am from an Amazon parcel or a loaf of bread. Of course I'm maintaining social distancing when I go to the supermarket, but you just can't do that with primary school children, or clean absolutely anything that they may have touched.