To think restaurants & coffee shops aren’t safe!!

[shesfancy]

Okay, I haven’t yet been to a restaurant or coffee shop since lockdown was lifted, but I don’t understand at all, how they can be safe.

I considered a drive thru coffee a few days ago but changed my mind. I mean how can it be safe drinking from a cup someone has touched moments before? Surely this is worse than being less than 2m to someone?

I’ve made the decision to not eat or drink out for the foreseeable, DH said I’m being over the top.
I don’t think it’s safe and I’m sticking with that.

AIBU?

I think you’re being over the top unless you are extremely vulnerable op

Yes you're being a bit OTT but I suppose that's your prerogative

Ummm did you worry about catching viruses from cups before covid? They are not a new thing. Anyway, no one is forcing you to leave the house or interact with people or touch cups.

Well, it’s not limiting your life to not go to Starbucks drive-thru, so you do you.

But no, the risk profile isn’t the same.

Drink your coffee, don’t bit your fingernails at the same time, sanitise your hands after. Your server can’t shed much virus onto that cup. As long as they don’t take a swig.

Restaurant - you’re spending much longer in closer contact with people, and touching many more items.

You are being OTT but that is your choice! Do you go shopping?

It's pretty obvious you're right @shesfancy

Why not just put on a hazmat suit and be done with it. This is hysterics.

@Petitmum

You are being OTT but that is your choice! Do you go shopping?

@Petitmum

No I do not go shopping. I have deliveries.

People touch your items in the shop. The delivery driver touches the items to load into the van. I think you're being OTT.

Yes, I think you're OTT and paranoid. I can see why this whole debacle is causing break ups and divorces. I couldn't live with someone so paranoid. I've got a friend whose husband's obsession with C19 has driven her to serious mental health problems.

OP when will you feel 'safe' again?

Totally respect anyone's own analysis of risk. But crossing the road isn't safe, or having excess units of wine, or being over weight. If it makes you comforted to avoid the tiny risk of firstly contracting covid through this and secondly suffering any ill effects (if you are otherwise healthy) then go for it. For me, there's a quality of life issue that helps me make my choices.

@applepineapple

People touch your items in the shop. The delivery driver touches the items to load into the van. I think you're being OTT

I wash my shopping with Milton before it’s put away.

If that worries you, then I assume it puts most places out of bounds for you. If you look at it that way then basically nowhere outside your front door is safe, but then unless you and your family live in total isolation, then you’re not really safe at home either. I have no problem going places, but everyone should do what they feel most comfortable with. What other options are there?

@borntohula

OP when will you feel 'safe' again?

@borntohula

Perhaps when cases are lower again?

I went to a coffee shop a few weeks ago and sat in an outside area. The tables were so close to each other that I've decided not to do it again as I was with a vulnerable person and I felt on edge the whole time.

I'm getting tired of the word safe. Life isn't safe. It's one continuous risk, Covid or not, and that's just the way it is.(Cue Bruce Hornsby and The Range)

Of all the things you do drinking from a cup that someone has touched momentarily is probably on the very low risk end of the scale. There's so far not that much evidence for surface transmission and in spite of rising numbers the vast majority of people are not walking around with active covid. Unless you're in the habit of snogging your barista in gratitude you'll probably be just fine.

No one is going to drag you kicking and screaming into a cafe. It's your choice but consider how important quality of life is to you and what makes you happy. Life is about so much more than hiding away in your home(and a lot of people die or are injured in their homes so that isn't "safe" either). This is just one risk amongst many others but we'd have no quality of life at all if we sat and fretted about everything that could potentially kill or harm us.

I think this is the problem when you’ve been in self imposed exile since lockdown. A bit like those Japanese soldiers who never realised the war was over.

I think your lack of interaction has skewed your perspective perhaps. If you think the risk is too great then you’ll just have to avoid these things.

All I know is that I’ve benefitted from having these moments of normality. I was in Starbucks today and enjoyed it very much.

I think the mistake is to think that everything can be categorised as either 'safe' or 'not safe', even pre-Covid. Pretty much everything carries a risk. You may have already had the virus- loads of people have it with no symptoms. Equally, pre-Covid it would have been possible for you to catch flu and die of it, but I doubt you were avoiding cafés and disinfecting your shopping before.

I can't believe that generally healthy people haven't just accepted that they will catch the virus at some point in their lives, just as they do other contagious illnesses. I don't even care if I get flamed for that.

Risk is a scale and it sounds like you're at the avoidant end of the scale. I'm fairly risk averse but have never washed the items that come on the shopping delivery because I consider that risk to be very small.

Drive through coffee doesn't sound risky to me if you wash hands, pay contactlessly and don't lick the barista's hand when they give you your drink. But it's more risk than you're happy with and that's fine, too. We don't all have to do exactly the same thing to be safe

Every safety rating I have seen says takeout is safe, eating at the restaurant is much riskier. We are doing takeout.

I think you're being very sensible and should stick with what you're doing. It makes you feel safer and it doesn't take anything away from your life. The arguments that 'nothing is safe' are irrelevant. Very few things are 100% safe, but we all do as much as we can in normal life to be as safe as possible. especially if it's something which doesnt cause us any extra work! I agree that if the person making the coffee and handling the cup is carrying Covid, then it will probably be on the cup which you then put into your lips, hence you could get it. I'm not going out for coffees/meals/drinks at the moment because I reckon that if i don't then I can't catch Covid from those situations. I want to do as much as I can to ensure I don't get it (I might not suceed, I know) because I think it would be a horrendous experience and also I would proabbly pass it onto othr peope. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Other people can do what they think fit, although they should realise that if they catch Covid, it's not only themsleves who they're putting at risk.

Do what you want and feel comfortable with, OP. The risks of catching coronavirus from a cardboard cup are minuscule, as I understand it (someone infectious would have to have touched their nose or mouth immediately before handing the cup to you, and you would then have to either put your mouth directly on the bit they had touched or put your fingers on it and then put them straight into your mouth). But if you aren't happy taking that minor risk then it's hardly essential that you do. You're probably in more danger driving to and from the cafe to be honest.

@borntohula

I can't believe that generally healthy people haven't just accepted that they will catch the virus at some point in their lives, just as they do other contagious illnesses. I don't even care if I get flamed for that.

@borntohula

I’m not a generally healthy person.

I have Inflammatory arthritis!! I also have a BMI of 30!!
I don’t want to take my chances. Also hospital admissions are up for people aged between 20-40 and I fall into that bracket!!!