Should we or should we not be wiping shopping??

[Jaem02]

I know the gov say it isn't necessary but lots of people are still wiping down or quarantining shopping. Should we be?

Never did.

Ok, so you don’t wipe packaging down. What happens when you open a bag of washed salad? You touch potentially contaminated surface and then grab a handful of salad and eat it🤷‍♀️
*I also wash washed salad just to confirm my “insanity.”

@ChanceEncounter maybe, but i forget and i’m starving. I find kissing gross, we’re all different aren’t we

[quote cardibach]@AmelieTaylor the risks may be unrelated. It one is much higher than the other. I can entirely identify with thinking that if the government has decreed being in a classroom with no social distancing is safe (it must be, right, or they wouldn’t be asking everyone to do it?) the. The risk of unwashed shopping must be negligible.[/quote]
Oh Cardi I do totally understand that, but I do keep seeing mad statements saying if they're doing x they might as well be doing Y. As if they're not completely separate risk factors!

Obviously it's completely safe in schools, to be in a room with 120 teenagers through the day, with no ventilation, masks or anything, but 6 year olds mustn't share pencils 🤪 because small children touching things is a far higher risk, that teenagers airborne droplets In a confined space ...oh wait😳😳😳

If there's only the most negligible risk with groceries (handled by many adults), why then have they stated that (the magic, non Covid getting/transmitting) primary pupils have to have their own stationery & taps/desks/door handles need to be regularly sanitised? If a small number of people touching things is no risk?!?!

We washed all plastic packaged groceries and quarantined unwashable paper/cardboard packages for 2-3 days until masks became compulsory in shops. Now we just remove any possible packaging straight away, if possible eg. fruit and veg bags, cereal boxes, bread packaging.

People do lots of strange and probably unnecessary things - some of those suffer extreme anxiety type disorders so cannot help it.

Up to the individual, if they have the spare time and nothing else to do and it isn't impacting of the mental health of anyone else in the household, so be it.

We did this for a while, but have stopped now. I guess at the start it gave us a sense of control. Now I am back at work to be honest I don’t have the time or the energy! I’d rather be doing other things!

More utter tripe

"Whoever said shopping wipers exhibited low intelligence could point to this as an example. It is a complete fallacy to believe that wiping down shopping can counteract your eating in a restaurant or sitting in a bar. The virus sadly does not respond to bargaining statements such as - 'if I wipe down my shopping, can I sit in a bar?'"

Except that's NOT what she said!!

@AmelieTaylor, what she said was:

" yet it [wiping shopping] might protect me and possibly counteract the other stuff I'm doing."

I used the same word? How is that not what she said?

@Squidsister

We did this for a while, but have stopped now. I guess at the start it gave us a sense of control. Now I am back at work to be honest I don’t have the time or the energy! I’d rather be doing other things!

Some true words spoken here.

It's enough of a palaver going out and buying the food in the first place, first through the queues in the early days, now the discomfort of having panic attacks and hyperventilating through having to cover my airways or risking being challenged over not obstructing my airways.

I had a close friend with OCD. Half of breaktimes were spent listening to the sound of half the toilet roll dispenser as she covered the entire toilet seat so she wasn't contaminated. She could barely handle money and would wrap it in tissue and if possible, get me to handle it so she wasn't contaminated. She had complex routines of so many steps and checks of the front door before leaving the house. She also had anorexia and in her head, two custard creams was a lunch for calories.
This kind of behaviour does matter.
If you don't sanitise your shopping "properly", does it worry you that it/ you could be contaminated. If it's not done properly and you're not bothered, why bother when the chance of it having any useful impact is beyond minimal.

If someone is very specifically severely immunocompromised, that's one thing, doing it out of anxiety and validating others with conditions like OCD does have negative impacts. For the vast majority of the population, our immune systems need exposure to background dirt and bacteria/ viruses to stay at a healthy functional level, and keeping our environment overly sanitised especially if with chemical products can be harmful long term.

I've taken more care with hand hygiene, but absolutely not cleaning down the shopping.

@AmelieTaylor

Genuinely curious... why do you feel you don't need to worry about it once it's in your fridge/cupboards? Do you genuinely not think about it again afterwards, like 5 minutes later getting the milk out to make a cup of tea or whatever?

No, but most of the shopping gets put away for long enough that any potential virus contamination would be gone. Fresh produce gets washed anyway as it did pre-Covid and before any use. And for the odd thing that I might use immediately, if I am making food or even cups of tea I tend to wash my hands a lot in the kitchen anyway so the risk is very low.

Actually pre-Covid I would always wash my hands well after putting the shopping away just because you're touching so much stuff that has been through potentially many hands, and near coughs and sneezes.

The only big change is trying not to touch my face which I didn't realize I was doing ALL THE TIME.

I have severe asthma so have been taking quarantining very seriously. I haven't been in a shop, cafe, anyone else's house etc since March 12. DH does all the shopping and he has a routine with alcohol sanitizer that he does as he enters and leaves different shops etc. I've read a lot of the research into Covid infections and tried to keep up to date as information changes.

Which was why we were doing the grocery wipe down in the early weeks as it was recommended. But now I feel the scientists believe the risk of surface infection for shopping is so low that the activity of doing it was creating more anxiety that it was worth.

Never have and definitely don't know anyone in real life who has. I honestly think it's verging on crazy behaviour, just wash your hands before you eat.

@AmelieTaylor

If there's only the most negligible risk with groceries (handled by many adults), why then have they stated that (the magic, non Covid getting/transmitting) primary pupils have to have their own stationery & taps/desks/door handles need to be regularly sanitised? If a small number of people touching things is no risk?!?!

For the primary pupils I think it's because they might be putting stuff in their mouths - chewing pencils etc, sneezing without covering their faces or wiping boogers etc on stuff, putting their fingers in their mouths or eyes and - then there would be more risk of virus droplets transferring to another child immediately.

But I'm in the US and in our county all of the schools are starting as distance learners because they don't think it's safe for kids to go back into classrooms yet. Plus when they do they will have to be socially distanced and wearing masks.

I used to but still the kids are back at school there's probably little point as we are now exposed to 800 odd households.

Yes we are, and all our friends are too, and most of our families.

Only takes a few minutes and after seeing someone take their mask off, wipe their nose with it, put it back on and then touch loads of different groceries, I'm glad we do.

We try to but are a bit hit and miss. We don’t stress about it. Just do it if we remember to. Read that it can last for 72 hours on some surfaces so we are just minimising the chances as we would rather not get it if we can help it - but also know you can’t have zero risk and we don’t want to get too obsessive about it.

What I don't get is the advice on washing fruit & veg even if it's wrapped. How can just a swill under the tap kill viruses and bacteria? You can hardly use disinfectant!

@BooseysMom I used to know someone who Miltoned all their fruit and veg.

Nope. Total madness.

Boosey you can wash in soapy water and rinse well. Should always wash fruit before eating anyway (the kind that you eat the skin).
At work I have to quarantine a jotter for days before I'm allowed to mark it, but if I throw out some cardboard packaging I'm being mad?

I did, my friend is having chemo and has been very diligent, but I stopped once restrictions were relaxed in June. Plus food shopping for two households, dropping off, wiping down was taking two hours. Now I just wash my hands once back from the shops and then again once everything has been put away.

We did from mid-March to early July but have since stopped and even been on holiday in the UK since, which seemed like a bigger risk for Covid than our shopping items.

I would consider starting up the wiping again if cases continue to increase rapidly though.

Our Clinell wiping of our shopping was taking over an hour each time (twice a week) though so it was fairly exhausting.

@BogRollBOGOF

It's enough of a palaver going out and buying the food in the first place, first through the queues in the early days, now the discomfort of having panic attacks and hyperventilating through having to cover my airways or risking being challenged over not obstructing my airways.

I had a close friend with OCD. Half of breaktimes were spent listening to the sound of half the toilet roll dispenser as she covered the entire toilet seat so she wasn't contaminated. She could barely handle money and would wrap it in tissue and if possible, get me to handle it so she wasn't contaminated. She had complex routines of so many steps and checks of the front door before leaving the house. She also had anorexia and in her head, two custard creams was a lunch for calories.
This kind of behaviour does matter.
If you don't sanitise your shopping "properly", does it worry you that it/ you could be contaminated. If it's not done properly and you're not bothered, why bother when the chance of it having any useful impact is beyond minimal.

If someone is very specifically severely immunocompromised, that's one thing, doing it out of anxiety and validating others with conditions like OCD does have negative impacts. For the vast majority of the population, our immune systems need exposure to background dirt and bacteria/ viruses to stay at a healthy functional level, and keeping our environment overly sanitised especially if with chemical products can be harmful long term.

I've taken more care with hand hygiene, but absolutely not cleaning down the shopping.

I think it's important not to label all cleaning behaviour as OCD as lots of people without OCD chose to clean their shopping items after finding out that Covid viral particles can survive on surfaces for days. Cleaning recently bought items is a rational, logical behaviour in this context and there is no reason to believe that it stems from or would lead to OCD (which is a disorder marked by intrusive thoughts, not a disorder of cleaning) in normal healthy people.

Also the 'Hygiene Hypothesis' re. exposure to bacteria, has more to do with the beneficial long-term effects of exposure to bacteria from mud, animals etc. during childhood and much less to do with exposure to viruses, which generally cause harm and are not beneficial. It's important that people do wash their hands to prevent the spread of the infection.

I have severe OCD and I'm a bit tired of people referring to the condition whenever anyone suggests taking Covid precautions. It's perfectly reasonable for people without OCD to take extra precautions during a pandemic.

Never have and never will.