To think some people need to get a grip!

[CurrentBun1981]

There are clearly those who are being far too nonchalant about the current situation, but tbh I'm probably encountering more of the slightly hysterical/OTT types right now.

For example, my friend has been frantically discussing on FB how best to sterilise her shopping and has implemented some ridiculously elaborate system of debagging shopping in the garage, putting the bags in the outside bin, wiping everything down with sanitising wipes, then walking back to put these in the bin too, before then leaving everything in quarantine for a couple days in the garage fridge. She's now worried about whether she's already brought the virus into the house on her shoes or her dog as she hadn't thought of that till she read it, and is discussing this on FB right now, trying to make another process involving outdoor footwear, indoor footwear, and 'transitional' footwear (presumably slippers from garage into house or something).

Her view is that she wants to go 110% in ensuring she doesn't catch it, which is fine. However, she doesn't do anything like this in any other areas of her life, which I suspect is the same thing for many others acting similarly.

For example, I've never seen her check the tyre pressure on her car and am 100% certain she doesn't do this weekly as is recommended. I'm pretty certain she doesn't know the legal tread depth and how to check it as she often needs new tyres at MOT stage (presumably illegally low on tread at this point).

What is it about this recent crisis that's invoking fear in the types of people who rarely use their car mirrors except to check their make up?

I'll concede that theoretically you could probably bring the virus into your house on your feet if you stepped in somebody's spit etc, but the likelihood has got to be tiny, and this is all ultimately to avoid catching a disease which will give the majority of victims 'mild' symptoms and is statistically extremely unlikely to kill her in the unlikely chance she catches it - I'm convinced the government might just let us crack on and catch it if it wasn't for the unmanageable strain on the NHS.

@CurrentBun1981. I agree with you. We have a immune system for a reason......

I’ve had it and just come out of it - probably a mild - moderate version. I’m slim, healthy enough, 51, just tend to get bad coughs with colds.
It lasted four weeks and my temperature only started being normal yesterday. I didn’t move for 14 days other than to make tea and toast (to prove I could get about and (game) 111 online so I wouldn’t end up in hospital). I was afraid to go to sleep because I woke in the middle of the night and sit bolt upright gasping and thinking i was suffocating. I feel someone has replaced my great lovely lungs with some second class version. However - I am getting better and I’m thankful for every bloody day that comes round.
Frankly if I’d known that there was a risk I would be like this I would have never taken buses just before lockdown (live in London), taken back cushions (ffs) to John Lewis to get them out of the house, and then showed symptoms 4 days later. I’m not sure what to say other than each to their own on this one. If she wants to seal the house and burn clothes on the way in it’s no one else’s business and “offering to talk” is insulting to this horrible virus.

I do agree though that some people who have assessed risk correctly for this are unable to assess risk correctly for other things.

I wasn't having a pop if that's how it came across. I just find it interesting how much the media influences people.

Most people don't regularly check tyres etc because they haven't had an issue the last few thousand times and get complacent. When some unfortunate person has a blow out and a serious accident it's unlikely to be a big news story and will just be something bad that happened to someone else. The cause might be mentioned in the local news story, but it will probably be mentioned in passing without any comment that it could've been avoided by preventative maintenance (as this would sound insensitive).

If we were to treat the same logic to cleaning shoes etc, we probably wouldn't bother doing it because we've never had an issue before and don't know anyone who has. And we'd most likely be fine. But I understand why people do it.

My son probably won't survive if he gets Covid 19 and he is very aware of that so yes I am not going out, washing the shopping etc. Part of this is to protect him and partly to reassure him.

I agree OP. After finding out that you can pack 10 million Coronavirus spores into 1 millimeter, the actual effort to eliminate every single spore would require you to burn your entire house down! The virus will go away when everyone has immunity/ a vaccine is available. Some programmed I’ve watched about cleaning everything top to bottom so your house is virus free is frankly perpetuating people’s fears!

I totally see your point. I'm also one of those people taking a lot more care now trying to avoid a viruses than I have to avoid so many other potentially fatal risks in the rest of my life. I'm sure that if we had headlines every morning telling us that close to 1000 people are dying in the UK each day because their tyres are bald, it would focus our minds on that instead. I think we all get very blase about the risks we take every day - just driving on the motorway, or flying in a plane, for instance - because we've faced those risks before and survived. What makes this different is that none of us have lived through a pandemic before so we genuinely don't know if we will survive it or not. Unless we're going to live in a bubble, I think we all realistically know that it's impossible to remove every trace of an invisible virus from our homes, however much we sterilise our shopping, but, speaking for myself at least, I think I'd be kicking myself if any of my family got really ill and I hadn't even tried.
I can totally see how pointless this may seem to other people though.

Sunshine you are wrong , the death stats show significantly more deaths than normal unfortunately.

OP, the cleaning of groceries / items coming into the house is becoming the norm for friends in the US, particularly in areas that were very proactive about closing workplaces, schools etc. The UK is the outlier in this and many other responses to the virus ( which partly explains why we're on track to have the highest deaths in the EU). With regards to symptoms etc: 80% will have "mild to moderate" symptoms ( including pneumonia), 20% will require hospitalisation and 5% will need ICU. Many who are hospitalised will have organ damage as a result. So if you're happy with your family members getting pneumonia ( and then being susceptible to this for the rest of their lives) or worse, then sure, people should just " get a grip".

Yes, there appears to be a bit of a group hysteria regards packaging being contaminated . It’s all wholly unnecessary. I accept the theoretical risk, but it’s tiny And tbh not worth the psychological distress or faff
Essentially
Wash your hands with soap,hot water prior to handling the packaging
Open and discard the packaging
Wash hands again with soap and hot water

In fairness to your friend perhaps she is actually very frightened and has high anxiety regarding the current situation, and rather than tell people that she is writing about things in a practical manner rather than an emotional one. It's easier to be that way rather than discuss feelings. People that have hypochondria can be the same. They will talk in great detail about the symptoms of their illnesses (imagined or otherwise) but rarely talk about the underlying emotions and anxiety that they are experiencing, the very core of their disorder. I think your friend is petrified right now, and has clinical anxiety, and it may be helpful to actually ask her why she feels the need to be so cautious and how she feels emotionally.

I have quite a strong sense of self-preservation and have been doing those things. I’ve only been to the shop once because I really had to, and washed clothes and jumped in the shower straight after (as is the advice) Milk bottles etc are washed when they arrive. Shopping either put away for 72 hours or washed if possible. Packages left for 72 hours. Just following the advice really, I’m not a hysterical sort of person but I don’t want it (asthmatic) and I don’t want my husband or kids to get it either.
I often think, maybe I’ll relax it a bit and then think ‘what’s the worst that can happen’? And the answer to that is one of us on a ventilator.

@YankeeinKingArthursCourt I just finally recovered from pneumonia a few months ago, does that mean I'll be susceptible to it for the rest of my life , its not from this virus but I have had it

She’s most likely going it because it gives her a feeling of control ie that she is actually doing something. It’s why people bought toilet roll.

Others are happy to go with the flow.

Each to their own

There is almost no one who takes the same approach to risk in every area of their life though. We all focus on some things and not others. It will be funny if AI produces robots that are constantly calculating statistical risk and programmed to act accordingly.

Concentrate on what you can control and not what you can’t. It’s over the top but isn’t harming you.

It will be funny if AI produces robots that are constantly calculating statistical risk and programmed to act accordingly.

Isn't this effectively what we already have with gov/military/healthcare software?

That level of extreme precaution is surely only possible to take while you are in self-isolation? They will be expecting more people to go back to work long before there is a vaccine. Tbh, I don’t think it is hugely healthy to get into a way of living that only works if you spend most of your life inside your home with little else to do.

Concentrate on what you can control and not what you can’t. It’s over the top but isn’t harming you.

Well, strictly speaking it does affect key workers like me who don't have the time to shop first thing in the morning or drive around six different shops to get the items which have been panic stockpiled by others.

I had to visit dozens of customer sites the other week and didn't have any hand sanitiser for most of it. I did wonder at times how many thousands of people were sat safely at home with loads of bottles stockpiled in their cupboards.

Luckily they're back on the shelves now at many places, but this just shows that there wasn't really a need to panic buy in the first place.

my daughter is a doctor working on the front line. Do not diss others attempts to guard against this virus. Those who say 'you are over the top' are deluded. People of all ages are dying every day, whatever precautions you take, good for you.

I can't be that paranoid. I began the C19 journey completely rational and then lost it somewhere around week 3. At the end of my 3rd week of lockdown I've somewhere near levelled out again. If I start something now, I'd just become obsessive! I'm not going to be bleaching my children, shopping or pets because bleach and lots of other disinfectants are really toxic. Don't get me wrong, I use bleach to clean, but only where I do actually want to kill everything that might be living (toilet/drains etc.) Bleach isn't even allowed in commercial cleaning anymore because of the gases it can produce, causing irreversible lung damage. A small amount splashed can also blind you.

What I don’t understand from those who take a less proactive approach to trying to disinfect as much as practically possible: do none of you have children in the house?
Or do all these children wash their hands as they take a biscuit out of a packet or when they pour themselves a glass of milk or when they open a packet of raspberries and touch a plate then touch their faced or your faces or as they open the fridge door.
It’s less risky to clean where possible based on what we know.

Branster - unless you live alone or don’t let anyone else in the house ever go outside, are you really saying that you take your children’s clothes off them in the entrance to your home and scrub them clean after they have been outside? Or have you not reached that level of extreme precaution, yet? How about salad? Do you ever eat that, or not because it can’t really be bleached, washed in soap or cooked? What will you do if they open schools again before a vaccine has been rolled out?

I wouldn't feel comfortable labelling someone as OTT who is simply following advice and removing risk of contracting/passing the virus.
The state of her car isn't relevant.

I thought that in Febtuary. A 10 year old had been killed on the M60 today but I will still get in my car.
I wondered then what's it about this virus. What actually is it that we aren't being told.
Now I think what is it why they are throwing billions to keep economies afloat.
What really is happening. It's not bird flu. What have they done.
Yes i know about cross contamination. I know about food poisoning but where has this come from. Have animals that have been experimented on been sold as meat at wet markets. Something has happened.

speaking for myself at least, I think I'd be kicking myself if any of my family got really ill and I hadn't even tried

But what if you do all these things, which to some of us seem ridiculously over-the-top and STILL get ill? Will you feel that you've failed your family in some way? Or will you just accept that shit happens and you can't eliminate every single risk element, however hard you try?