Post by Admin on Apr 5, 2020 2:40:10 GMT
Should I wear a mask to the store?
Yes. Given the current shortages, surgical masks and N95 respirators should be reserved for medical workers, but as of April 3, the CDC “recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.”
This represents a major change in the country’s approach to fighting the spread of the coronavirus. Until now, the CDC had been advising healthy people not to wear masks unless they were showing symptoms or had reason to believe they’d been exposed. But — as many other experts have been pointing out for weeks — one problem with that guidance is that there’s no way to know who has it. As many as a quarter of coronavirus cases are asymptomatic, CDC director Robert Redfield said in the week leading up to the new guidance, and even people who do eventually get sick can transmit the virus before showing any symptoms.
The logic here is pretty straightforward: Since coronavirus mostly spreads when germ-containing droplets make their way into a person’s mouth, nose, or eyes, it makes sense to try to limit how many droplets are floating around in crowded spaces.
The big caveat is that, as noted, traditional medical masks still should go to medical professionals first. While a cloth mask isn’t as good as a medical one, it still offers some protection. Widespread face coverings don’t mean we’ll be able to ease up on other recommendations like social distancing and frequent hand-washing; cloth masks just offer one more layer of protection. If you want to make your own, here’s how.
While we’re talking about protective gear, gloves — which have the potential to carry the virus more or less the same way hands do — are still mostly not recommended for grocery shopping. It’s more important to wash your hands after your trip and avoid touching your face.
Is it okay to bring my own reusable bag, or is it better to just get paper or plastic ones and throw them away?
Reusable bags are fine — assuming you’re diligent about cleaning them. Under more normal circumstances, once a week would be okay. Right now, Gloster advises: “Wash them after you come back, every single time.” (Some experts, however, have expressed less concern about washing bags after each use.)
As cleaning expert Jolie Kerr wrote for Vox, nylon and cotton grocery bags can be machine-washed in cold water and air-dried. If you have reusable bags that can’t be machine-washed, you can wipe them down with a disinfecting wipe or an all-purpose spray and a paper towel. You can refer to the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of disinfectants for use against the SARS-CoV-2 virus to determine if a cleaning agent meets the agency’s criteria for use against the coronavirus.
What about checkout? Should I use cash or credit? Is self-checkout safer?
If you have a contactless option like Apple Pay, that’s probably the best, Gloster says. (Keep your phone in your pocket until then.)
As for cash versus credit? “There’s no good answer here,” Gloster continues. Paying with plastic often means touching a pin pad; cash isn’t known for being especially clean. Self-checkout should reduce contact with a cashier — good for everyone! — but it requires you to touch surfaces other people are also touching.
However you pay, Petrie says, “the most important thing is washing your hands when you’re done.”
Should I be sanitizing my groceries once they’re at my house?
Probably not. There’s a lot we don’t yet know about the coronavirus, but touching infected surfaces “doesn’t seem to be the major way this virus spreads,” Petrie says.
“I am not recommending disinfecting your groceries,” Don Schaffner, a professor of food microbiology at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and host of the podcasts Food Safety Talk and Risky or Not?, told Vox. “This seems like being overly cautious. We don’t know of any cases of Covid-19 transmitted by food, nor of any cases transmitted by food packaging.”
That’s pretty much what the FDA is saying, too. In a statement on March 24, Frank Yiannas, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response, noted that “there is no evidence of human or animal food or food packaging being associated with transmission of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.”
“I’m doing the same things I’ve always done in terms of washing my produce,” says Petrie. “I’m not wiping down my packaging, or leaving it outside for three days, like I’ve seen in some stories.”
While it likely isn’t necessary to sanitize your groceries, you do want to wash your hands after handling packages and when you have finished putting items away.
A lot of stores have special hours reserved for people likely to be more vulnerable to the virus — older people, or people with compromised immune systems. Are those a good idea?
Opinions here vary, and there are, again, no simple answers. In an ideal world, people in high-risk groups would have someone who could do their shopping for them — whether a friend or a delivery service — so they wouldn’t have to leave the house at all. (If you’re the one doing that shopping, great! Follow the steps above.)
Given the world that exists, though, special shopping hours likely have benefits, assuming they’re not so popular that stores actually get busier during those times.
“But if those people are able to come in when there’s fewer people, and they can get help from the staff more easily, then I would think that would be a good thing,” Petrie says.
There’s another benefit, too, Gloster points out: Usually, these special hours are first thing in the morning, which means that the shelves are likely to be fully stocked. If it’s especially risky for you to go out at all, then it’s important you’re actually able to get what you need when you do.
Technically, I “have groceries” — I could definitely eat for a few more days — but it would really be better if I had more garlic and something other than beans. Does that justify shopping?
No. “Put it off, absolutely, as long as you can,” Gloster says. She recommends digging through your cabinets and pulling out all the older stuff you meant to use and never did (canned pineapple, weird ancient grains, etc.).
This is a great time to experiment, because you have no other choice. This is not a great time to get food poisoning, so err on the side of caution and toss what’s expired.
Is it safer for me to get my groceries delivered, even though there are still people involved in this process?
Yes. If you can swing it financially, it may be your best option, Petrie says, simply because you’re coming into contact with fewer people — and potentially, in the case of contactless delivery, no people at all.
Okay, but is it ethical? Am I just asking other people to shoulder the risk for me?
On the one hand: Yes, to avoid going out, where you might contract coronavirus, you are paying someone else to be out, where they might contract coronavirus.
At the same time, not ordering groceries — many of which are delivered by gig workers — means those delivery people don’t get paid, as Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley, told Wired. And by getting delivery, it’s possible you’re helping cut down on crowds in stores.
One thing you can do is order from companies with better sick-leave policies for delivery workers. (Some independent contractors in Instacart’s fleet planned a strike on March 30 over the company’s policies.)
Another thing you can do: not be a jerk, as Jason Del Rey outlines at Recode. Opt for contactless delivery. Don’t dock ratings. Tip generously.
Yes. Given the current shortages, surgical masks and N95 respirators should be reserved for medical workers, but as of April 3, the CDC “recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.”
This represents a major change in the country’s approach to fighting the spread of the coronavirus. Until now, the CDC had been advising healthy people not to wear masks unless they were showing symptoms or had reason to believe they’d been exposed. But — as many other experts have been pointing out for weeks — one problem with that guidance is that there’s no way to know who has it. As many as a quarter of coronavirus cases are asymptomatic, CDC director Robert Redfield said in the week leading up to the new guidance, and even people who do eventually get sick can transmit the virus before showing any symptoms.
The logic here is pretty straightforward: Since coronavirus mostly spreads when germ-containing droplets make their way into a person’s mouth, nose, or eyes, it makes sense to try to limit how many droplets are floating around in crowded spaces.
The big caveat is that, as noted, traditional medical masks still should go to medical professionals first. While a cloth mask isn’t as good as a medical one, it still offers some protection. Widespread face coverings don’t mean we’ll be able to ease up on other recommendations like social distancing and frequent hand-washing; cloth masks just offer one more layer of protection. If you want to make your own, here’s how.
While we’re talking about protective gear, gloves — which have the potential to carry the virus more or less the same way hands do — are still mostly not recommended for grocery shopping. It’s more important to wash your hands after your trip and avoid touching your face.
Is it okay to bring my own reusable bag, or is it better to just get paper or plastic ones and throw them away?
Reusable bags are fine — assuming you’re diligent about cleaning them. Under more normal circumstances, once a week would be okay. Right now, Gloster advises: “Wash them after you come back, every single time.” (Some experts, however, have expressed less concern about washing bags after each use.)
As cleaning expert Jolie Kerr wrote for Vox, nylon and cotton grocery bags can be machine-washed in cold water and air-dried. If you have reusable bags that can’t be machine-washed, you can wipe them down with a disinfecting wipe or an all-purpose spray and a paper towel. You can refer to the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of disinfectants for use against the SARS-CoV-2 virus to determine if a cleaning agent meets the agency’s criteria for use against the coronavirus.
What about checkout? Should I use cash or credit? Is self-checkout safer?
If you have a contactless option like Apple Pay, that’s probably the best, Gloster says. (Keep your phone in your pocket until then.)
As for cash versus credit? “There’s no good answer here,” Gloster continues. Paying with plastic often means touching a pin pad; cash isn’t known for being especially clean. Self-checkout should reduce contact with a cashier — good for everyone! — but it requires you to touch surfaces other people are also touching.
However you pay, Petrie says, “the most important thing is washing your hands when you’re done.”
Should I be sanitizing my groceries once they’re at my house?
Probably not. There’s a lot we don’t yet know about the coronavirus, but touching infected surfaces “doesn’t seem to be the major way this virus spreads,” Petrie says.
“I am not recommending disinfecting your groceries,” Don Schaffner, a professor of food microbiology at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and host of the podcasts Food Safety Talk and Risky or Not?, told Vox. “This seems like being overly cautious. We don’t know of any cases of Covid-19 transmitted by food, nor of any cases transmitted by food packaging.”
That’s pretty much what the FDA is saying, too. In a statement on March 24, Frank Yiannas, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for food policy and response, noted that “there is no evidence of human or animal food or food packaging being associated with transmission of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.”
“I’m doing the same things I’ve always done in terms of washing my produce,” says Petrie. “I’m not wiping down my packaging, or leaving it outside for three days, like I’ve seen in some stories.”
While it likely isn’t necessary to sanitize your groceries, you do want to wash your hands after handling packages and when you have finished putting items away.
A lot of stores have special hours reserved for people likely to be more vulnerable to the virus — older people, or people with compromised immune systems. Are those a good idea?
Opinions here vary, and there are, again, no simple answers. In an ideal world, people in high-risk groups would have someone who could do their shopping for them — whether a friend or a delivery service — so they wouldn’t have to leave the house at all. (If you’re the one doing that shopping, great! Follow the steps above.)
Given the world that exists, though, special shopping hours likely have benefits, assuming they’re not so popular that stores actually get busier during those times.
“But if those people are able to come in when there’s fewer people, and they can get help from the staff more easily, then I would think that would be a good thing,” Petrie says.
There’s another benefit, too, Gloster points out: Usually, these special hours are first thing in the morning, which means that the shelves are likely to be fully stocked. If it’s especially risky for you to go out at all, then it’s important you’re actually able to get what you need when you do.
Technically, I “have groceries” — I could definitely eat for a few more days — but it would really be better if I had more garlic and something other than beans. Does that justify shopping?
No. “Put it off, absolutely, as long as you can,” Gloster says. She recommends digging through your cabinets and pulling out all the older stuff you meant to use and never did (canned pineapple, weird ancient grains, etc.).
This is a great time to experiment, because you have no other choice. This is not a great time to get food poisoning, so err on the side of caution and toss what’s expired.
Is it safer for me to get my groceries delivered, even though there are still people involved in this process?
Yes. If you can swing it financially, it may be your best option, Petrie says, simply because you’re coming into contact with fewer people — and potentially, in the case of contactless delivery, no people at all.
Okay, but is it ethical? Am I just asking other people to shoulder the risk for me?
On the one hand: Yes, to avoid going out, where you might contract coronavirus, you are paying someone else to be out, where they might contract coronavirus.
At the same time, not ordering groceries — many of which are delivered by gig workers — means those delivery people don’t get paid, as Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley, told Wired. And by getting delivery, it’s possible you’re helping cut down on crowds in stores.
One thing you can do is order from companies with better sick-leave policies for delivery workers. (Some independent contractors in Instacart’s fleet planned a strike on March 30 over the company’s policies.)
Another thing you can do: not be a jerk, as Jason Del Rey outlines at Recode. Opt for contactless delivery. Don’t dock ratings. Tip generously.