Wiping Down Shopping

[Ilovemypantry]

This might have already been covered but without trawling through I just thought I’d ask anyway.

So...when you get your shopping home (or delivered) are you all cleaning every single item? If so, what are you using to clean with? Would an antibacterial wipe be suffice or does it need to be bleach? I am wiping things over with antibacterial wipe but a bit half heartedly tbh. It’s quite a daunting task having to wipe every single item before putting it away in the fridge/freezer/cupboard.
Just wondered how everyone else is tackling this.

No. Large Sainsbury's shop for a family of four.

Handle carrier bags with gloves. Unload carefully and wash hands well afterwards.

I'm vulnerable and do everything I can to reduce the risks. They say it can live on plastic for up to 72 hours so I don't know why vulnerable people would take the risk (even if small).

I use diluted bleach on all shopping (after removing excess packaging and binning straight away) and items I've used whilst being out at work, pen etc. I leave some post unopened that can wait. If I do open any I wash my hands straight away.

I have a bag of wipes (soaked in diluted bleach) that I prepare at night for the car so I can wipe around inside every day after a shift.

Put it in a bubble bath

Yes. But then I’m (still) waiting for cancer surgery so I don’t want to risk catching the virus and delaying surgery by even longer than it’s already delayed. Were it not for my cancer I’d not be wiping the shopping.

Yes, I am. I do think it’s probably excessive and unlikely that we’ll pick it up from the packaging, but I need to know that I’ve done as much as possible to protect my family.

@FreyaB84 I'm sure I read that freezing doesn't kill coronavirus?

I wash mine in a weak bleach and washing up liquid solution.
Even our local council page advises that we wipe down shopping and disinfect the floor where the shopping bags have sat.
I'm sure it's on the main government website advising to do this too.

Put the shopping away.

Wash hands.

Job done.

The risk of being poisoned by bleach/cleaning products is probably (purely my opinion, no sources for this statement) a higher risk than catching Covid-19 off a bread bag.

Given that the government’s own documents state that they believe we’d need 15 minutes close contact of less than 2m with an infectious person to have a chance of catching it, wiping down shopping is OTT.

However I think it gives people a sense of control in an out of control world.

Do you have a link to that please Deux, many thanks

this is quite good from about 5 minutes onwards.

I don't wipe down anything.

The only thing I have done differently is buy more fruit and veg pre-packed rather than loose.

@FreyaB84. It can live up to 2 years in a freezer 😫

@Deux for starters, scientists have proven it takes far less than 15 minutes. And however long that takes, it has nothing to do with picking it up via surface contact

Given virologists & other scientists wash their shopping & advise people do so, what some MN poster thinks about it being OTT is neither here nor there to the well informed.

As for 'then just wash my hands' great, giid habit...but if it's on the items, you'll get it in your hands when you then pick it up to use it!

Very very few of the people in the UK have any Idea of how they got it, so saying no one has contracted it via post/shopping is just stupid. It lives on surfaces, obviously you can pick it up
On your hands & it gets trf to you via your nose/mouth.

FGS are people so dim they really think everyone who has it, had someone cough directly into their mouth?! Seriously?

publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/03/04/coronavirus-covid-19-what-is-social-distancing/

The people who don't wipe their shopping down, do you guarantee the whole household not to touch it for 3 days? Or do you wash your hands literally every time you touch say a washing up bottle that you bought yesterday, or a tin that you bought recently? It has been proven it lingers:
In the air: Up to 3 hours
On copper: Up to 4 hours
On cardboard: Up to 24 hours
On plastic: 2 to 3 days
On stainless steel: 2 to 3 days
OK for things that are put in the fridge, or even better the freezer. But otherwise you just don't know.

@AmelieTaylor @ofwarren Thanks both for the info. I hadn't looked into it myself and I'm not sure where my relative got the idea from. I'm torn on whether or not to share if with her, though. Her anxiety about this is through the roof to the extent that she's kicked her keyworker husband out to stay with his Brother and she won't let her kids go out into the garden.

Same goes for post - it stays on cardboard for up to 24 hours. I clean the mailbox when the postman has been but I also wipe all the letters too. Nobody else I know does that but if you leave it in the box for 24 hours for the germs to go away then you just get the problem starting over the next day when you get more put in there...

No. I just put it away as usual

I just make sure not to touch my face until I have washed my hands

@TimeWastingButFun
But doesn't the paper go all soggy? 🤔

If it makes you feel better, why not. We've little enough control over what's happening right now, this is an easy enough thing to do. But don't simply wipe everything with the same cloth - if something does have virus on it, you are just smearing it all over the rest of your shopping.
Use Sanitising spray and several sheets of kitchen roll, or else rinse your cloth out well in your disinfectant/bleach mix between items.
Or just put it away as it is!

I just wash the fruit and veg in hot water in the sink and leave it to dry on the draining board. But I did that anyway as I buy most of it loose rather than pre-packed (though not onions or bananas and such things you peel!).

Since watching the Channel 4 programme, "How Clean is your House during the Corona Virus pandemic", I have been following their advice on "How to bring your food shopping home safely." Basically they said to decant everything you can and wash your hands. Anything else gets washed in washing up liquid and water. They even did a brilliant demo on how really effective simple washing up liquid is at getting rid of anything that has "grease" like the outer part of the virus. No need for bleach too. This convinced me. My family think I am totally crazy but I don't care. The virus can live on plastic surfaces for quite a few days. We are not sure yet. So until we are, I am washing some of my shopping like bottles, cans, cartons and sealed plastic boxes.

metro.co.uk/2020/04/09/clean-house-not-clean-enough-7-essential-tips-defeat-coronavirus-home-including-keeping-toothbrush-away-toilet-12532071/

I did and then I stopped. It’s a ridiculous task!

I don’t use shopping bags in the trolley , I wipe everything down when I get to the car & transfer clean wiped items in my own shopping bags.

Oh and I heard of virologists in Germany examine households of families affected by COVID and whilst they could find traces of the virus on door handles the virus wasn’t live as such.
*disclaimer - this was from March so maybe the science has changed

@longearedbat
'I don't wipe shopping down, just wash my hands regularly. I know of someone (who is neither elderly nor vulnerable) who strips off after shopping and puts everything on a hot wash, then wipes all shopping down with bleach etc. To me that seems verging on obsessive'.

It's sheer madness! 😂