Are you still wiping groceries?

[Lovely1a2b3c]

Just that! We have been wiping food shopping items as some of the family are vulnerable (not shielding) but wondering if it's time to stop?

@Siddalee so presumably if the co-workers had a) washed their hands before having their lunch and b) not touched their faces they would have been OK.

Never did this, just washed hands.

And as a supermarket worker - if there had been any directives about the possible spread on surfaces, we would have been among the first to be told.

Everyone in authority has been pretty bang on about telling us the latest updates and regulations around threat and spread and protection. Nobody has said 'oh, supermarket workers should take extra precautions because of the risk of unwashed surfaces', and, believe me, if there were a lot of cases being reported of the virus being spread via groceries, we WOULD know!

All our groceries get burned on a bonfire as soon as it gets home, just to be extra sure.

I do similar, but I nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies

No it's a slippery slope to OCD imo.

What crap. You clearly know nothing about OCD. It is not synonymous with being very fussy. Ditto the person who said this would lead to germ obsessions.

I’m still wiping groceries and washing fruit and veg. So what if it turns out that it is unnecessary? It doesn’t take long, and there’s no such thing as being too careful; but there may be possible risk in not being careful enough.
I’m no longer quarantining or wiping post, though, so am lightening up a bit!

Never did this.

So what if it turns out that it is unnecessary? It doesn’t take long, and there’s no such thing as being too careful;

Well, there is, if too much soap is bad for your health.

No I never have, I wash my hands after I put the shopping away but I never felt the need to wash everything. With the increased washing of hands I wouldn't have thought it'd be an issue. I have dogs so I like to wash my hands before I eat anything anyway.

No, I wash my hands if I remember but have so many deliveries that I sometimes forget.

@HPLikecraft You clearly know nothing about OCD

I'm interested to know more about this statement.

I know that if I go down the path of washing my shopping that I will end up feeling 'I can't remember wiping that item' or 'I think I didn't clean that corner of the box well enough' or 'did I put enough soap in the water' and I'd go back and redo the cleaning and get stuck in a cycle. I would end up with a raised heart rate and breaking out in a cold sweat with the panic of not having done it properly and then the horrible feeling of not being able to get out of the situation.

Doesn't that sound like OCD?

I suffer these issues with a different trigger. I've always assumed this is OCD related. If its just 'fussiness' its bloody severe and difficult to cope with when its bad.

For this reason (and other reasons which I've talked about upthread) I've considered it a bad idea for me to get into washing shopping.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

Never started. The risk is so minute.

And wiping the bins? They sit outdoors in the weather and UV light - just don't touch them for a day or so if concerned. There is no need to sanitise everything.

17000 in my village, so binmen with us one of the last stops have already handled most of them.

I weigh up the risks, we use our outside bins every day, no big deal to sanitise once a week for peace of mind - only the bits people touch, not the whole thing! If someone said you could only do 1 out of food or bins, they would be my choice.

But DH shielding, if he wasn’t, I would have been less precautious. He has had 10 visits to hospital in last couple of weeks, so infinitely more chance of him picking something up there.

No I don't. If we were very vulnerable or shielding then I might think differently but I don't think its necessary. I've always washed my hands before and after preparing food anyway so even there was a minimal chance it was on a container then I don't think it poses a risk.

Someone very close to me has severe OCD about germs which started when they were young so I'm wary of appearing too paranoid about it in front of my young children.

We never started wiping groceries. To be honest, unless you’re extremely vulnerable I think it’s just silly overkill.

I've never done it. None of the staff at either our local Waitrose or Sainsbury's have contracted Corona, so it seemed pointless.

No. I did in the height of my panic and caught myself at a bunch of grapes with a muslin cloth and the fairy liquid. I wash hands and surfaces down after shopping is away. If you feel better doing it And your being as environmentally friendly (sorry for preachy) as you can be, then there’s no reason for you not to.

Not voted as it is up to you what you do but we have never washed groceries and have also had takeaways

Never did.

Pressed enter too soon . . .

Never did. Fear mongering and overkill has a lot to answer for in these covid times.

I love the idea that washing your groceries will lead to mental health problems and is somehow too much effort. . You do know that MOST people in hotter countries or who buy their food from markets wash it when they get home don’t you? My grandmother used to do it (think 1950ish). It’s really not a new thing you guys have just been being gross without noticing. Why on earth WOULDN’T you wash something that might have been coughed/sneezed on, dropped on the floor, walked over or pissed on by rodents, or whatever?

Glad someone else worries about the OCD thing.

I'm a catastrophiser with anxiety. It absolutely crucifies me to have my (unreasonable) health panics legitimised: I've spent an inordinate amount of time training my anxious brain to recognise what's a real thing, what is disordered thinking, and how I can tell the difference.

I think if someone told me that the behaviour I have spent a lot of time working on changing because it's unhealthy - my thing is DVTs, so for instance I would be measuring my calves with a tape measure to check for swelling, getting up out of bed every hour to keep my circulation active walking round the house overnight etc - is actually reasonable and proportionate, I would spiral.

I've stopped. I live in a county that has nearly 2 million people and had only 2 confirmed cases yesterday. I know there are more out there, asymptomatic or untested, but the chances of one of them coughing on my groceries is minuscule. I sanitise my hands after paying for the shopping and again after I've put it in my car. Wash hands after unpacking it and then that's it apart from washing fresh produce which I do in normal times anyway.

I'm not suffering with anxiety at the moment but have in the past and I don't want to get sucked back into that vortex of "I need to do more" which has made my life unnecessarily difficult and the anxiety worse in the past.

I’ve never washed the parcels or post either or isolated them! Opened and washed my hands.

All our groceries get burned on a bonfire as soon as it gets home, just to be extra sure.

So coffee can come out of your nose if you laugh hard enough...

I never did. The chances of getting it from groceries are minuscule. I just wash my hands after shopping, and also after putting all the food away.

Ineednewshoes - I was also wondering about the effect on our health long term after watching the news footage of a bloke in a protective suit spraying the inside of train carriages