Looking At The Supermarket Through The Eyes Of This Coronavirus Crisis.....

[global1]

I went to the local supermarket today to stock up on groceries for the weekend and suddenly looked at it in a very different way because of the coronavirus crisis.

What about the produce section? People picking green pepper, onions, potatoes, etc - picking them up touching and handling them - putting them back in the stack.

The trend in supermarkets these days is to have salad and food bars - so people can pick up a quick meal. These are just sitting out there in the open - subject to any germs that float around in the air. I saw a couple of people that were picking up some food - coughing. Then I thought about what we hear about how this virus might be transmitted in the air within 6 feet from a person.

Then there were a couple of food sampling stations where people lined up to grab a morsel of food as they shopped.

Suddenly I got sick to my stomach thinking about how maybe this Covid-19 was floating around the store.

So I decided to stick to frozen foods that were packaged instead of raw produce. Also - stock up on food in cans and packages - wrapped foods.

Has anybody else had a similar enlightenment as you shopped? Have any news stories about this virus addressed my concerns?

Just curious and wondering if I'm making too much of this?

[msongs]

1. our house does not buy off the salad bar, and costco veggies are pretty much packaged nt

[frazzled]

2. People touch and handle packaged and canned goods too

And those virus droplets are gonna get on you when you pick up the box or bag or can just as much as when you pick up a potato. And they’ll stick around in your cupboard a while.

My advice, if you are buying produce, is not to consume them raw. I think thorough cooking or roasting of vegetables should kill the nasties. Switch to canned or dried or cooked fruits. You can live without salads for a while.

[global1]

5. You Can Swab Down And Sanitize A Can Or Package....

you can sanitize your hands as well. Raw foods, food bars, etc - you take your chances.

[Big Blue Marble]

3. What about the packages and cans?

Could they be contaminated by a recent cough or sneeze?

It is all too tricky right now and we know just enough to raise our anxiety.

[skip fox]

12. It only clings to certain surfaces, right? and then only lasts on them for under a day.

Then yopu might consider shopping as you normally do (without touching your face, of course), load the car, sit in the driver's seat and swab your hands with sanitizer, then the wheel you likely touched getting in.

When you get home, unload the groceries and put them away.

Then wash your hands thoroughly.

I remember some expert saying the virus will last on the smooth surfaces (like some packaging) for only a short time, so the next morning when you handle the cereal box, it should be fine.

I'd love to hear what could be wrong with this.

[C_U_L8R]

4. I'm not going near that hot bar at Whole Foods

[Flaleftist]

7. What's wrong with the hot bar?

[dalton99a]

8. +1. "How many people have touched those spoons/tongs?"

[KT2000]

6. just as I was leaving

I saw a young lady wipe her nose on her hands and then pick up a hand basket. I'm afraid I would have left if I saw that at first.

My friend is a serious germaphobe and she is doing well with all of this. She is a dental assistant and they are taking temps of people in the waiting room before they go into the exam room. The thermometer doesn't even touch the skin!

In one store, I carried a wipe I kept rubbing on my hands while I shopped. Some of us (me) may end up kind of nutty before this is over.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I dunno.

The people I know who are germophobes, oddly enough seem to get sick a whole lot more than the rest of us. I'm thinking of those who have always used a paper towel to open and close a restroom door, stuff like that.

I recently read that the germophobes who clean constantly are actually more at risk because they are basically moving germs around a lot. Not eliminating them.

Perhaps my cavalier attitude to germs has stood me in good stead all these years.

And I'll admit that I'm having a bit of a problem keeping up with the numbers of those infected with the corona virus. Remind me again how many millions have now contracted it?

And meanwhile, a truly trivial number of people have gotten influenza this year, right?

[smirkymonkey]

15. I have also always had a pretty "casual" attitude toward germs and so far have

been pretty lucky. I never really get anything more than a seasonal cold. I am of one of those "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" kinds of people. Maybe I'll regret it one of these days, but it seems to me that the people who are really paranoid about germs are always the ones who are coming down with something or other.

It's not like I go around licking subway poles or anything like that, but I'm just not obsessive about everything I touch. Use common sense and ordinary precautions. Otherwise, you will drive yourself crazy getting paranoid about thinking that disease is lurking everywhere just waiting to infect you.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Our immune system is designed to be challenged by all sorts of things.

In the past, before any vaccinations, we'd get those challenges and would either die or survive. If we made it to age twenty or so, we were pretty much immune to anything and everything, and or the next thirty years or so were pretty much invincible to disease. Then, at about age fifty or so, our immune system tended to decline, and of course we all eventually die.

Because of the genuine wonderful advances of modern medicine, including things like vaccines and anti-biotics, we don't succumb as readily in childhood to terrible diseases. Most of us live to grow up. Unfortunately, at least some of us get there with a less than optimal immune system. But again, in our modern world, that's not so terrible. There are medicines to deal with those things. Which overall, is quite good.

But at some point it catches up with us. Especially if you're someone with a less than optimal immune system, for whatever reason.

When I was a little girl, up until about age six, I got sick A LOT. I lived in low-income housing in the early 1950s, so there were lots of kids and lots of diseases going around. Plus, back then, we all got measles, mumps, chicken pox, and german measles (rubella). It was normal. I myself never knew anyone who suffered bad outcomes from any of those, even though I know those bad outcomes existed.

In my case, around the time I turned seven my immune system kicked in big time. I did get the usual complement of colds for the next 40 years, and I get influenza several times, including the Asian flu in 1957. I got flu perhaps twice, maybe three times after that, and haven't had it at least since sometime in the early 1970s. I've always had a somewhat cavalier attitude about illness, and guess what? I'm still the healthiest person I know. Unlike the germophobes who obsessively use a paper towel to open a restroom door.

[smirkymonkey]

18. When I was around three and a half I had a terrible flu. I was delerious, sky high temperature, I

was hospitalized for a week. They didn't think I was going to make it but I pulled through. I am convinced that experience kicked my immune system into to overdrive. I was exposed to my siblings who all had chicken pox and never came down with anything more than a few itchy bumps and rarely got sick after that.

Interestingly enough, both sides of my father's family emigrated to this country in the late 1800's and my grandparents and their siblings (who were from anywhere between 15 and 30 at the time) all survived the Spanish Flu. There were 10 kids in my grandmother's family and 8 in my grandfather's family. My great-grandparents survived as well. Those who didn't die of unnatural causes lived into their 80's and 90's. Some of my luck may be genetic.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. It's a combination of genetics and what you've been exposed to.

Which a lot of people here don't seem to get.

Those few itchy bumps you got was as much as chicken pox manifested itself in you.

When I was a baby, my older sister got chicken pox, and according to my mother had a case so bad that she often thought that might be what smallpox looked like. Kathie had scars on her forehead the rest of her life. Because I was so young, perhaps six months old, mom was very concerned about me. The family doctor gave me a shot of gamma globulin, a common thing back then, which was in 1949. It was more or less an immune system booster. According to mom, I got some of the symptoms of chicken pox, but never got the actual poxes. And of course I was exposed to it any number of times over the years, including when my own two sons got it.

What a lot of people don't understand is that getting influenza and recovering from it, tends to lead to a life-long immunity to that version of the flu. Which is one of the reasons people over the age of 50 almost never got the 1918 flu, which was so terrible for young adults. The elders had been through an epidemic of a similar flu (a type A, which is by far the most virulent of the three kinds humans get) some fifty years earlier, and were for the most part immune.

Here's something else I learned recently from a talk about influenza. As truly wonderful as the flu vaccine can be, it appears that getting it every single year is less than optimal. Every other year is apparently better.

[smirkymonkey]

21. Interesting about the flu vaccine. I wasn't aware of that. I have not had a bad

case of the flu since I have been getting it (very mild cold/flu symptoms) but never an all out case. I will have to look into that.

Thanks for the info Poindexter! Here's to your health!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

22. I was very surprised by that.

And this was not a talk by someone with any doubts about the general usefulness of the flu vaccine, just that she had a chart that showed a definite drop off of effectiveness if you got one this year and also got one last year. Perhaps for some people getting it every other year would be a better thing to do. It's hard to say. The woman giving the talk did not suggest that; she only pointed out the clear drop off in effectiveness.

[meadowlander]

10. Yes. Wash your food before your cook it and wash your hands

after you touch it and before you eat it. You'll be fine.

You are almost inevitably going to get Covid-19 at some point unless you really live in the boonies. Instead of worrying about everything you touch, build up your immune system now to prepare to fight it off.

80% of the people who get it are only going to get the equivalent of the flu, particularly if you're young and generally healthy. I wouldn't go out of my way to try to catch it, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it either. Take sensible precautions. Not touching anything in the grocery store is not a sensible precaution.

[pat_k]

11. General habits

I'm not naturally a germaphobe, but since I moved in with 83 yo mom, I've learned to act a bit like a germaphobe. I don't want to bring ANYTHING home that could put her at risk, and there are all kinds of respiratory illnesses for which there is no vaccine. For example, influenza A (H3N2 strain, which vaccines have very limited affect on), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), parainfluenza, adenovirus, rhinovirus, and the common coronavirus strains that cause colds.

I've come to see supermarkets as a hot bed of possibilities for picking up "something." I know where the restrooms are in the stores I go to and wash hands on the way out. I also do a lot of handwashing at home... definitely after putting away groceries, before and after preparing any sort of food, etc. I've gotten fairly good at stopping myself from touching my face, particularly when I'm out and about. I wipe down kitchen surfaces, refrigerator and cabinet doors, light switches, door knobs most days. I don't go nuts, but whatever I'm doing, it's been effective at keeping me (and my mom) healthy.

This might sound like paranoia to some, but for me they have become general habits I don't think much about. I figure the same habits that reduce chances of catching other pathogens, should be effective at reducing chances of getting COVID 19.

[wishstar]

13. My favorite grocery stopped putting out samples this week and food bars looked untouched

I will not be partaking of either samples that others could have touched or food bars where everyone touches the utensils and often even put back food they have picked up. Several weeks ago I watched a firefighter crew come in to the store for lunch and one of them weirdly handled every one of the pears in the produce display after coming from their truck and didn't even select any to purchase so I am now sticking to bags of apples and produce instead of individual pieces.

[SMC22307]

14. The hand-held scanner at Home Depot grossed me out to no end.

It grosses me out on a good day, but with coronovirus floating around? Yuck. There wasn't any hand sanitizer at the checkout counter (a mini-bottle hangs from my purse but I went in with wallet only) and the manager dude said they were running low. I once watched the customer in front of me pick her nose then use the credit card swiper. The clerk and I just sort of stared at each other and I deadpanned "I'm not touching that" and we burst out laughing. She donned gloves and wiped it down. I'm not exactly a germaphobe, but people can be GROSS. So, yes, I'm aware of what you're saying. I dine out or do carryout quite frequently and am now starting to question even the wisdom in that.

[Awsi Dooger]

17. None of the stores are filling the handiwipe canisters often enough

Empty everywhere I go. The stores are still using the typical method of checking them once in a while. That's fine when maybe 1 in 25 customers uses them. Now I'm encountering several people alongside me staring at the emptiness.

I got into a habit of using those things when my dad had pulmonary fibrosis at the end of his life. He became a stickler for using them every time, and complained when they were empty.

Now I'm carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer in the driver door compartment.

[spinbaby]

20. Costco had the greeter wiping down cart handles

Which made no sense, really, because you’d already touched it by then.