house. You could also “quarantine” the packages in your
garage for a few days, washing your hands well after carrying them to the garage. The risk seems low that you’d bring the virus into your home on packaging, but the risk is never zero. What you should avoid, is dragging the boxes and bags into your home, hot off the truck, and cutting them open on your kitchen counter or dining table, and then forgetting to wipe down those surfaces with
disinfectant before you prepare or eat any food.
CHECK ONTHE MAIL
We don’t know how you feel about going to get groceries. Some people have always hated food shopping. For the homemaker types, it wasn’t so bad in former times. You’d push the cart through the store (bare handed!) and plan some meals that the family would like. You might buy a few days worth of food, bring the bags home and plop them right on
the countertop where the food is prepared.
Today, things are not so easy. At some point, the groceries in your kitchen are going to dwindle and you’re going to have to resupply. This means a trip to the grocery store, and possible exposure to the coronavirus. Even if you wear gloves and a mask in the store, many people have touched your food packages, which you have touched after touching the
shopping cart handle.
And don’t even remind us about the poor, beleaguered checkout worker, who has touched everything that has been handled by customers (both healthy and sick) and then touched each and every item you buy. This is why you need
to set up a decontamination station at home. Here’s how.
STEP 1 Pick a cleaning station. This should not be your kitchen table (where you eat the food) or your kitchen counter (where you prep it). We know folks who use a plastic table in the garage, which is perfect (easy to wipe down). For a simpler process, you can just organize and sanitize
everything on the front walkway.
STEP 2 Take everything out of the bags at your cleaning station. Get rid of disposable bags, and toss reusable bags in
the laundry to be washed with hot water and detergent.
STEP 3 Sort your groceries, according to the category container (or lack thereof) or by the “type” of food. Try lumping it into two categories, cold stuff and shelf stable,
safe stowing the cold stuff and perishables first.
STEP 4 Wipe down packaged products. You can use Lysol wipes to give your packages and products a quick wipe down. There’s no need to spray them with aerosol disinfectants. Save that for your household uses (like door knobs and toilet seats). Let the products dry before handling them again. Yes, cardboard and paper packaging will be a little messed up after a sanitizing wipedown, and if you don’t want that, there is an option for shelf stable products (things that don’t need to go into the fridge or freezer right away). Or, you can quarantine your products. Leave your shelf-stable products in the garage a few days, and any viral
organisms on their packaging will die.
STEP 5 Put it away. With clean hands, put away your disinfected products. If you have household helpers, they can take the items that have been wiped down (after the products dry). Or you can do it all. Either way, you are minimizing
your risks and that’s a beautiful thing these days.
BE SAFE ABOUT GROCERY SHOPPING
If you are out of Lysol wipes, make your own bleach wipe. Blend 2 teaspoons of bleach with 6 tablespoons of water, then apply this to a washcloth to wipe
down your products.
MAKE YOUR OWN WIPES
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Fraudsters and criminals won’t pass up an opportunity to take advantage of those who are scared and vulnerable
during a pandemic, so keep these things on your radar.
REJECT SNAKE OIL REMEDIES While there’s a lot to be said for natural products that support healing and boost your immune system, there are plenty of questionable “cures” on the market everyday (and more during a disease outbreak). A “pocket full of posies” didn’t help anyone survive the Black Death in medieval Europe, but thanks to a great marketing team and a catchy jingle, everyone wanted to buy useless flowers in the 1300s. Today, products promising to “cure” any disease should be considered suspect (unless it’s an officially recognized vaccine or drug, and even then, do your
homework before you bite).
AVOID STRANGER DANGER No real representative from the
CDC is going to come to your door during a pandemic.
Unfortunately, criminals have been appearing at peoples’ doors and claiming that they are from a health organization, only to barge into the house for a home invasion style of robbery. Face it, none of us are going to have the “President of the CDC” banging on our doors at 10 o’clock at night. In simple terms, don’t answer the door for anyone during a
pandemic, unless you’re certain you can trust them.
DEFEND YOUR DATA Hey friend, wanna buy some brand-new extra strength coronavirus test kits? How about we speed up the delivery of your stimulus check? We’ll just need your mother’s maiden name and the last four of your social to proceed. And maybe your bank account information and a credit card as well. It’s a sad state of affairs, but even when we’re not in a crisis setting, we are inundated with phony phone calls, emails and texts from scammers. Never provide personal information to anyone via email, text or over the
phone. The identity you save may be your own!
DON’T GET SCAMMED
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basics
Even before an epidemic is formally declared, you can expect to be overloaded with information from various sources such as the news media, Twitter, Facebook, and directly from your friends and neighbors. Everyone will have an opinion and suggestions for what to do, and often you’ll get contradictory information—which makes everything more confusing and stressful. Here are
some simple ways to make sense of all the noise.
CHECK YOUR SOURCES Be skeptical of news sources you’ve never heard of before. Who the heck is “True Virus Times,” anyway, and why are they saying that spinach can cure you of whatever ails you? See if you can find reporting on the same information from other
news sources.
KNOW THE DIFFERENCE Opinion pieces, letters to the editor, and talk shows are generally not credible sources
of news.
INVESTIGATE EXTREME CLAIMS Rumor may be passed off as fact. Double check information to make sure it’s not a rumor. Especially when people start feeling desperate, an
irresponsible rumor can cause real harm.
CHECK THE DATE Sometimes articles that appear related from years earlier get carelessly reposted as current news. Avoid adding to the confusion by at least checking the
date before you hit “share.”
FACT CHECK Even trusted news sources can sometimes be wrong, especially in a fast-developing situation such as a spreading illness. Trust but verify with websites dedicated to fact checking or with respected international news
sources like the Associated Press or Reuters.
CHECK YOUR BIAS Be aware of the human tendency to accept information as