What, no intermission? OMG that was long.

I don't have a blue tape, but was sort of doing a clean side, dirty side too. He is more doctrinaire that I am for sure. I use wipes, and not one for each that is for sure! I rinse my fruit but not w soap. I think the CDC said water was enough.

Curious to see who comments here ....

Me! I shopped yesterday and I don't plan on going out for another week. I just had the store keep the fruit and vegetables in one bag and the cold and frozen in another. Everything else I left in the bags until the next day in the garage. It was a little over 24 hours.

The fruit and vegetables I rinsed well, no soap. The milk and such I did soap, rinsed well, and let drip dry, then put in frig or freezer.

I put all the pantry stuff up today.

I’ve seen that and the guy contradicted himself in a major gaffe. At the beginning of the video he said that coronavirus can live on cardboard for one hour. Later, as he is handling the cereal box, he says it harbors virus for 24 hours. The NEJM says one hour, so obviously it would be much more prudent to just leave your boxed goods outside the house for a couple of hours. For the same reason it makes more sense to bring the groceries home in a cardboard box than in plastic bags, which can harbor virus for three days.

Nice guy and kudos for trying, but he was not practicing “sterile technique” even in the broadest sense of the term.

Hmmm....I appreciate that he made the video and want to thank you for posting it. Some folks might feel like it’s over kill but I don’t. The entire time I was watching, I kept thinking about how we handled our last batch of groceries which is scary in comparison.

So can we leave our boxed goods in the garage for several days and skip the washing and disinfecting?

You may want to google "how long coronavirus lives on surfaces" in order to decide that, but it seems like an easy and logical solution for non-perishables.

So can we leave our boxed goods in the garage for several days and skip the washing and disinfecting?

-----------------------------------------------

That's what I'm doing

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that states, among other things, that the virus remains viable on cardboard for one hour. Assuming that is true, it would be far easier and there would be less chance of contamination if you simply leave your boxed goods in the garage or on the porch for an hour or two. However, since the virus lives much longer on plastic, I would not leave boxes in plastic bags while you are waiting to bring them inside. In fact, since of all the container materials he mentioned, cardboard is the least friendly environment for the virus you may want to take a box with you to the store in which to to transport your groceries home. Think TJs or Aldi. ...

I don’t know that I can go to quite the lengths he went to. I will adopt some of his techniques.

A neighbor went to the liquor store today. While he was there, he picked up a couple of bottles of wine for me. I brought them in and immediately washed the bottles with soap and water.

This is from the NEJM's study. On cardboard, it's 24 hours.

On cardboard, no viable SARS-CoV-2 was measured after 24 hours and no viable SARS-CoV-1 was measured after 8 hours (Figure 1A).

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973?query=featured_home

Thanks for the reminder, I need to bring in the 2 large bags of dog food that I left sitting in the garage for the last 2 days!

I will admit, it was much easier than my usual method of putting everything up at once! I may keep doing this afterwards.

Does anyone have those reusable grocery bags? Can you wash them? I reuse a certain amount of the plastic bags as trash bags, but I have enough for probably a year and have just been taking the rest back to the store for recycle.

I have hesitated to get the ones the stores sell, because I couldn't see how they would be clean after awhile, especially with meat. If they are washable, I could do that after each trip.

I have some nice reusable grocery bags and they are washable and look like new after washing. Some of them might not wash that well. You might want to do a test wash on one bag.

These grocery bags are washable. Mine are 10 years old. They are washed weekly.

https://www.reisenthel.com/en/shopping/Function/foldable-bags-r/

I have the reusable bags made out of a nylon type fabric, which I throw in the wash when I remember - more often now.

I have quite a few Chicobags, and a couple of bags from Ikea.

Here's a good deal on bags on Amazon. There are lots of options.

Reusable grocery bags are banned in Massachusetts as of today per our governor. Our town bans plastic bags so Whole Foods and Stop & Shop must use paper bags.

There is a correction to the video re: the virus lives 1 hour on cardboard.

@happy2b…gw, you’re my hero! Frozen milk! If only.... I am currently rationing DH‘s milk with his cereal. We are going to be fine on groceries for a while, but I’m running out of milk. I have cream, but he doesn’t care for cream on his cereal.

When I lived in blizzard country, I kept powdered milk in the pantry. I no longer do that, but I may start doing it again.

I cannot take credit. I have extra milk due to forgetfulness not smart planning. Will your husband like something else for breakfast?

Bonnie, The reusable bags have been criticized in the past for harboring germs but no one was paying attention unitl now. Glad your town is.

It will be interesting to see how the whole disposable vs reusable bag thing evolves. Disposable was bad and now reusable is also bad!

I always reused my disposable bags as trash can liners, now I just buy trash can liners.

“This is from the NEJM's study. On cardboard, it's 24 hours.

On cardboard, no viable SARS-CoV-2 was measured after 24 hours and no viable SARS-CoV-1 was measured after 8 hours (Figure 1A).“

Thank you Toby for that correction! I assumed the first figure of one house he stated was correct instead of checking for myself. Lesson learned. I would still leave the boxed goods outside the house for the requisite period of time to avoid having to essentially decant the contents into other containers.

DD1 brought over a large order for us on Monday. It was all in plastic bags. Unfortunately stores don’t offer paper bags in my city which I think is a crying shame. The task was rather daunting. I put on plastic gloves and conceding good enough would have to do - I hope - I put them all on to a certain area on the kitchen floor. Then I wiped the boxes and plastic containers and bags with paper towels sprayed with Lysol and moved those onto one counter. The fruits and vegs were all washed with water and put aside to drain on another counter. There were no frozen foods because the store was sold out. The used plastic bags were put away to “decontaminate”. Then I disinfected the counters and washed the kitchen floor. Who knows how effective or safe this all is, I sure don’t want to overdo chemicals on food/containers. Whew!

How is milk that has been frozen? Is it okay freezing it in its original container?

Agreed kswl, not exactly sterile! His new video is better than the first, but still very flawed.

I bought a milk and froze it, plastic jug. poured some out and froze it. I used to do when the kids were little...I don't remember it tasting weird...but that was a long time ago. I was a little concerned him using the same wad of paper towels to wipe several items. ??

I followed his instructions the best I could with my Instacart delivery until I got to the extra bag....I didn’t order 4 boxes of tin foil, 3 boxes plastic and 4 boxes of Paul Newmans popcorn. It’s all in my garage. I tried to let Instacart know but just got a message saying they’ll get back to me. I feel sorry for delivery girl who made the mistake.

I keep frozen milk in the freezer all the time. I can't taste the difference and I don't open it and pour some out either. The round indention on the side pushes out to take care of the expansion.

Regarding freezing milk - when I lived very remotely in Montana we would grocery shop quarterly so I’ve got plenty of experience with stocking up. Milk freezes very well and taste and texture is not compromised. Be sure to open each container and pour out about 1/2 cup to allow room for expansion. It’s also not a bad idea to have powdered milk on hand just in case. I personally do not like the taste of it, but if I mixed it in the milk container my kids never knew the difference 😊

I too will not have to go out or have anything brought in for weeks. I am like Happy, I have frozen milk too. In small containers so I don't have to take out more than I want. I don't want to be thawing a gallon jug of it. I put mine in clean water bottles that the water had been poured out of and I fill them partly full.

I require monthly chemo. DH shops, wearing 'outside' shoes; gets paper bags; sets bags on a designated kitchen counter. I wipe anything in hard plastic or cardboard with bleach-water. I wash milk and OJ jugs before refrigerating. DH disposes of the paper bags, and I wipe the counter with bleach-water. I wipe his car keys, credit card, wallet, cell phone, and the garage door handles. We wash our hands frequently with soap and hot water. Incoming mail 'ages' on a back hall countertop. Our delivered newspaper is stripped of its plastic wrapper in the garage and the paper also ages until after we have finished breakfast. A Kleenex is used and immediately discarded -- not 'saved' because it's still good for 'another blow'! The first thing DH does whenEVER he comes into the house is WASH -- even after getting the mail or paper.

Covid-19 lives 3 days on plastic and hard surfaces; 24 hours on cardboard. You are very unlikely to be infected from these surfaces in your home. Biggest danger is droplets in the air; hence the need for social distancing. Let's not forget plain old non-Covid-19 germs and *dirt* -- or rodents -- if you're leaving food in a garage.

Then there is this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/26/dont-panic-about-shopping-getting-delivery-or-accepting-packages/

But if you take basic precautions, including washing your hands frequently, the danger from accepting a package from a delivery driver or from takeout from a local restaurant or from buying groceries is de minimis. That’s a scientific way of saying, “The risks are small, and manageable.”

We have so many threads going with overlap of information it's hard to know whree to put this. but here it is.

https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/cdc-clarifies-live-infectious-virus-not-found-17-days-later-princess-ship

DLM, interesting how the original "scary" article was all over the media, but the correction has barely been shared. The media seems to prefer to share mostly bad news!

Now that we are back in Cathedral City, we can leave things out in the sun to disinfect them. We currently have a very high UV index from about 11 am to 3 pm, and so we can use that time to disinfect items. Supposedly it only takes 10 seconds for UV radiation to do the trick, but we will wait longer. Anyway, it is another thing you can do, now that it is Spring.

Marilyn, after I froze the milk, I wished I had divided the milk into smaller containers. Too late now. but a plan for next time. Hoping there is no next time.

I saw this on my state's website and came here to post this:

The CDC currently states that “novel coronavirus may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials” (CDC, March 18, 2020). It is important to understand that being “alive” on surfaces is not the same as being infectious. At this point in time, we still do not know if the virus is infectious on surfaces, and if it is, how long it remains infectious.

based on some posts above, it might be we all came across similar info

Best of luck to you, Chisue, sounds like you have an excellent approach.

Czarina, when i started reading the WP article i was hopeful I could let down my guard, but by the time the article was over, the upshot was to do what I already do, LOL

eta --- hey, i finally found what I hoped to read:

Dr. Winetsky agreed that the risk of contamination from jars, cans or other containers “is infinitesimally small” and that you have to balance risk with anxiety. “I would not do this myself or really recommend it to other people,” he said. “This level of anxiety about sanitation can be harmful in and of itself.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/well/eat/coronavirus-shopping-food-groceries-infection.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage