General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHelp please---watched 13 minute video earlier by a doctor regarding how to
safely bring groceries, etc. Into your home in view of pandemic. Want to share with my kids and now can't find it.
If you can give me the link I'd sure appreciate it. Thanks.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)StarryNite
(9,458 posts)Atticus
(15,124 posts)cate94
(2,813 posts)FuzzyRabbit
(1,969 posts)I learned a lot from this video. This may well save many lives.
Freethinker65
(10,033 posts)Wash down all items for fridge/freezer and be careful for cross contamination.
Common sense stuff that he goes a bit overboard on.
Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)eleny
(46,166 posts)zackymilly
(2,375 posts)GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)And if there are immuno-compromised family members.
I'm not too sure that this is feasible for everyone.
Or even needed.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)I asked a doctor about that during cancer treatment.
'You're going to peel and cook them. Don't be silly. And you're going to rinse them. That's all you need to do.'
Atticus
(15,124 posts)The danger is the possibility that someone who is contagious picked up that apple at the store or coughed or sneezed on it just before you bought it. When you or someone in your family handles it and then touches their mouth or nose or eye, the still viable virus could infect you or them.
Likely? No. Possible? Absolutely. We've been washing apples and oranges for over 2 weeks now. If that is thought foolish, so be it. I doubt that many who are in their 70s with compromised immunity consider it foolish.
GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,392 posts)How many doctors, nurses, orderlies, EMTs, admins, etc. should suffer or even die for the rest of us to have the extra convenience of being cavalier?
GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)I've yet to see anyone else calling for this level of 'sterile room' cleaning except for those who already are infected.
Look, it's not being cavalier - My response was pretty visceral to something that seems a bit JOTT for many people.
I have a friend who just posted the following:
Corona Diaries
A couple of years ago I became involved with food management in the healthcare sector. After a career in which has reached from small restaurants to massive festivals this work seemed fascinating to me. Bettering patient dining and developing thoughtful restaurant operations for the dual consumer journeys of visitors and healthcare providers is as community centered as anyone could ask for from a profession. Now during the current crisis, I am traveling as a mission critical leader in order to support stressed out teams in healthcare institutions.
Let me share some recent observations and thoughts with you. First, I have read with admiration recent articles about healthcare professionals who are working during this era of shelter in place. The same goes for police and all first responders, refuse collectors, and grocery store clerks. They are critical to how we will weather the current virus. I want to talk about the response of the culinary industry out here in the world.
I am currently supporting a hospital culinary team in Houston, Texas. Each morning all clinical and non-clinical staff pass through a cattle chute to answer health questions and have our temperature taken. I am grateful for this precaution, although how asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic carriers might be accounted for is a distressing line of thought. That guy over there who didnt cover his cough just now. Is he an unaccounted-for spreader? Or the colleague who wont respect the 2-meter rule. I dont mean to keep backing away from you, but you are increasing the chances that I will be carrying COVID-19 home with me. I know that you are only human and are driven to huddle close by our nature. While I do love all my brothers and sisters, seriously dude, back the fuck away.
Lets talk about who is passing through the chute. (Embrace the line is our motto. I like to go through like Im coming out of the tunnel at the Superbowl.)
Physicians. nurses, techs, healthcare admins for sure. But also, chefs, cooks, registered dieticians, clinical nutrition managers and support personnel like stewards and utility workers. Thats on the food side. Then there is housekeeping. Managers, housekeepers, the specialists who sterilize the OR and manage infection control throughout these giant towers. If a zombie-pocalypse strikes as a result of COVID-19, make friends with one of these types. They are better at surviving than you are. We are cheerful, careful and caring of each other. I am proud to be in their company every day.
I could not write this without mentioning the travel factor. Although many are horrified by the idea of commuting by air, let me say that having my own row in first class has had a soothing effect. Everyone is wiping down everything with Sani-wipes, and I have an N-95 mask. These were lovingly and presciently supplied by my partner who is smarter about this than me. She also produced DIY hand sanitizer and bleach wipes, since hoarders have apparently decided that that nations stockpile of these can be more safely stored in their garages. Thank you, hoarders! She also protects me from run-on sentences, for which I am enormously thankful.
There are 15 guests in my 200- room hotel. We never see each other. I feel more alarmed by the empty corridors at night. I swear that if I see a kid on a Big Wheel in the hallway Im going home. Same goes for twins and blood on my door.
The restaurant is closed so I am also grateful to the front deck staff for allowing me to make my own espresso in the morning.
There is a different conversation about culinary teams and restaurant staff who do not have work, healthcare or enough unemployment benefits. Its an important discussion, particularly the part about self-operated restaurants and their staff getting a bailout before airlines and corporations do. Depending on whos counting between 1 and 4 million will be laid off by the end of the month.
This writing is about the folks out there today, though. All the professions and trades mentioned and so many more, including the National Guard in Cali where I live, are out here running the machine.
They get up every day and leave their families behind sheltering in place. At a time when people are locked in and maxing out from boredom and posting their latest cooking triumph (or failure) these wonderful humans are showing up at the last place anybody wants to be during a pandemic. They do their work, share the same elbow bump that weve always used in the kitchen and sanitize the crap out of everything. They are feeding, serving and protecting clinical staff, acute patients who cant be discharged and their single visitor allowed each day.
When social distancing is over and the world returns to whatever the new normal is going to be, please do kiss the cook.
2naSalit
(86,743 posts)Because his over-riding point is that you leave your groceries outside! WTF? I guess if you don't live near animals who would either eat or foul the groceries and then temps. We fluctuate between +15F and +50F on a daily basis, most of my stuff would be trash by then and I might as well leave it out for the bears.
BTW, leaving food outside is illegal in this region once the bears are up, which is now. In some places it's year 'round. I don't have wildlife proof containment for my food besides the four walls of my home.
I just select stuff carefully and wash stuff off when I get inside.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,392 posts)It is a worthwhile demonstration, even if it is not a polished production.
Here's the original discussion: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213169616
Raine
(30,540 posts)if I left food outside I'd end up with a whole pack of them at my door. I'd be in trouble with the city and my neighbor's.
GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)Questions are in italics - bolding mine
Daniel Camus - Professor at CHRU in Lille and head of the vaccinations service at l'Institut Pasteur de Lille
English translation of article in Ouest France about handling your groceries at home ...
Shopping is still essential in confined spaces. But can you contract the virus by going to the supermarket? Can plastics and cardboard packaging contaminate us? Answers with infectiologist Daniel Camus.
Daniel Camus, you're an infectiologist at the Pasteur Institute in Lille. Everyone asks the question: is there a risk of catching Covid-19 while shopping?
The probability is low unless the person who works in the supermarket or the person who packed the yoghurt, water, milk or other packs was sick and was coughing a lot and spraying a lot of saliva droplets on the products. But honestly, the probability is low because someone in that state has the common sense not to come to work.
From a practical point of view, when you go home with your shopping, should you beware of plastic and cardboard packaging?
When you go home with your shopping, you remove the wrapping film and cardboard, as usual, and dispose of them in the appropriate bins. That's all you have to do. And then you wash your hands thoroughly. Period.
Without more precautions? No need to quarantine your products before you put them in the cupboards?
As a scientist, you can hardly ever have a 100% sure answer. The general public has a hard time understanding that. And if I say that, people will immediately assume there is a risk. But I repeat: the probabilities are extremely low.
In any case, we must understand one principle: it is impossible to create or try to live in a sterile atmosphere. It can be done in a small laboratory, an operating room. At home, it is totally impossible. If you put your products away before you put them in the cupboards or put them straight away, it doesn't make much difference. If there is a trace of the virus on something you put in your closet, it will die.
Why?
Because the virus absolutely needs to enter a human cell in order to continue to live and reproduce. That's true of any virus, by the way. They can't live in an outside environment. If you let it wait for a few hours, whether it is outside, in your home, on the tile floor, in a cupboard or in the middle of the kitchen, the virus will become inactive.
However, several studies seem to show that its lifespan on a support could go, depending on the nature of the materials and the quantity of virus deposited, from 2 hours to 9 days at room temperature...
Yes, these are experiments that have been conducted under specific laboratory conditions. They are often extrapolated from research on other coronaviruses. But under real-life conditions, the life span of the coronavirus of severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a maximum of 24 to 48 hours.
It should also be understood that the virus can be detected without being infective. Let's imagine that there is a trace of virus on a medium. You leave it for several hours. By molecular biology technique when you come back you will find a positive signal, i.e. it is still detected. But that doesn't mean it's still capable of infecting a human cell. In fact, it's quite unlikely.
Are there any special precautions to be taken when buying fruit and vegetables?
You should avoid picking them yourself from the stalls and touching them. Let the shopkeeper do it. He puts them in a bag and then gives you the bag. When you go home, you wash your vegetables and peel them as usual.
Do you have to wear gloves when shopping?
Most people who wear gloves don't know how to use them: because they feel protected, they start touching anything and everything and risk spreading the virus.
Imagine: you wear gloves. You've touched something infected, you go home, you unload your car trunk, you're more likely to take the virus home than if you went there with your bare hands. You might as well not put them on and wash your hands well when you get home, and wash them again after unpacking and putting your groceries in your cupboards and refrigerator.
Wearing a mask to go shopping is just as useless?
Completely useless. Leave the masks to the nursing staff. There aren't enough masks
On your way home from shopping or outside, do you have to take off your shoes before entering your home?
No, you shouldn't scare yourself unnecessarily. If you have tiles in your home, you should wipe them with a damp cloth or mop of water mixed with any detergent or bleach diluted 0.1% to 0.5%.
And is white vinegar effective in removing the virus?
No, white vinegar is an excellent cleaner, but it is not a disinfectant. The two should not be confused. A cleaner removes dirt. If you come home after shopping and have left your things in the middle of the kitchen, it's best to wipe with a damp cloth soaked in bleach once every 48 hours. This is a good attitude to adopt. But don't get paranoid.