Albert Ko at the Yale School of Public Health and others offered guidance about grocery shopping.
With new research that suggests the new coronavirus can live on surfaces for hours or days, the prospect of going grocery shopping can seem daunting.
But you can manage the risk.
First of all, the viability of the virus goes down over time and it’s sensitive to temperature – so it dies off more quickly in room temperature than it does in the cold.
Second, when you go to a grocery store, people aren’t generally touching all the cans on the shelf — although there tends to be more handling of individual items in the produce section.
Among the things you can do to protect yourself and others are:
Wash your hands before and after going to the store.
Shop at off-peak hours so it’s easier to keep a distance from others.
If you’re over 60, see if stores in your neighborhood are offering shopping exclusively for seniors an hour before opening to all.
Don’t touch something at the store and then touch your face.
Use a sanitizing wipe to disinfect the shopping cart or basket handle. Many stores now provide wipes, but you might want to come with your own supply just in case they’re out.
Ko says it helps to understand the differing levels of risk in different situations. Coming into close contact with a person who is infected with coronavirus carries greater risk than touching a shopping cart that might have been touched by an infected person hours or days earlier.
When it comes to disinfecting things, it makes sense to focus on high-touch surfaces. Ko says you should worry more about disinfecting bathroom doorknobs and faucets at home than about a can of tomato soup from the supermarket.
“There’s never anything that has zero risk,” Ko says, “but the risk is so much lower than [surfaces] that are more frequently touched.”
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