Wait, we were supposed to quarantine our groceries?
At least very early on, transmission from contact was a suspected method. Rare, but still something mentioned to be careful of a part of all of the recommendations, along with washing your hands after touching anything someone else has touched. This is partially why there were all of those anti-microbial door handle keychain button pushing things, antimicrobial tape put on door push-bars, etc.
The virus was said to be able to survive different amounts of time on different surfaces. For example, 4 hrs on copper, 24 hours on cardboard, and up to 72 hours on plastic of some other metals.
How concerned should you be about disinfecting groceries or packages delivered to the house?
We should be prudent about packaging. If you receive a package in the mail and don’t have to open it right away, just put it aside — and then go wash your hands. After 72 hours, you can open and unpack it with no worries. Same for non-perishable groceries. If it is a perishable item, let it sit in your fridge for three days without touching it. If it’s a grocery item you need to open or use right away, you may want to wash the packaging with soap and water or clean it with a disinfectant.
From clothing to groceries, there's a lot of question marks these days. What should we actually worry about (and what’s just overkill)? Dr. John Swartzberg, professor emeritus of public health at UC Berkeley, gives us some clarity.
www.universityofcalifornia.edu
Since the start, we've tried to adhere to every possible recommendation. Not for our own safety, but I would HATE to find out that MY contact with someone brought death to them or their family. So, since last march, we've never gone grocery shopping more than once every two weeks (sometimes stretching it to 3 weeks). We've never even done "outdoor dining". We've gotten take-out maybe 10 times, and it's a 2-person job to unpack to keep food "clean" since it doesn't get cooked again. When we get home from the store, one of us keeps "clean" hands to open cabinets and refrigerator/freezer drawers and rearrange, while the other puts things away with "dirty" hands. We clear out two cabinet shelves for all of the "new" items (cardboard in one, plastic in another), we shuffle things around in the refrigerator so that the "clean" stuff is all kept separate. The next day, we've been assuming cardboard is "clean" aside from just normal physical dirt (from being put on the floor, of in a bag with dirty potatoes, etc), etc. But for those three days, any time we touch something with plastic, glass, etc containers, the containers or hands get washed before toughing anything else.
Then we just leave the emptied shopping bags sitting next to the front door for 3 days until we put them back into the car(s).
Not going to lie...a year of washing my hands after touching almost every ingredient's packaging before touching the food, and trying to get "clean" ingredients out from "contaminated" packaging has been...tough. Of course ingredients that get cooked aren't so much a concern.