72 hour "quarantining" of goods

[RaspberryCoulis]

I am a charity shop volunteer and when we finally reopened in July after the first lockdown what really hit us hard was the recommendation by the Charity Retail Association to quarantine all donations for 72 hours. As we have very limited space in the shop it meant we could only accept a fraction of what people wanted to give us.

Given that there is no evidence at all that you can pick covid up off second hand clothes and books, is it too much to hope for that we'll reopen in May as per usual? I don't think I can bear another X number of months of trying to explain to donors and customers when I think the rules are batshit crazy.

Charity shops round us stopped doing that after a while! They said it was a nightmare and that it didn’t really make sense.

What charity shops need is massive warehouses for the deluge of donations that need sorting and quarantining... Nightingale Charity shops!

I manage a charity shop and the guidelines changed last year-no more need for quarantining items. It was the happiest day of my working life when the info came down. It was so very difficult, and everyday was a game of Tetris, turning away donations for safety and worrying about big collections. We do however spray down everything once a day with a special spray and clean down surfaces-still extra work, but nothing like the 72 hour quarantine.