Whether you’re an individual or a business, hygiene has never been so important. The Coronavirus spreads through tiny droplets in the air, but you need to be close to someone for this to enter your body. Face masks are effective at reducing the risk of airborne particles.
But, the virus is known to survive on surfaces for hours and perhaps even days. This means you’re more likely to pick it up by touching something that someone who’s infected has touched. Of course, getting it on your hands isn’t necessarily a sign that you have the virus, it’s when your hands touch your face that the virus can enter your body.
In theory, you should wash everything you touch or at least wash your hands before and after touching it, even if it’s disposable café supplies delivered by a professional firm.
However, this isn’t practically possible. Instead, you should adhere to the following steps when handling groceries and takeout.
Minimize Touching
The days of picking everything up to look at it are passed. Out of respect for others and your own safety, you should only pick up a product when you intend to purchase it. Picking things up and putting them down simply increases the number of people who’ve handled the item and the likelihood of viruses being on them.
Sanitizer
Before you enter a shop, sanitize your hands. This reduces the likelihood of you spreading germs through touch. While shopping you need to avoid touching your face, no matter how difficult this can seem to be.
When you leave the store place the items in the boot of your car and sanitize your hands again, making them clean for the drive home.
At home, you’ll want to remove everything from the car and place it in one spot.
This is where the debate can get heated. Some say the packaging should be disinfected or that the groceries should be left in the garage for 2-3 days.
However, there is an easier approach.
Unpacking
- Keep all the items you’ve bought in their bags and on the floor. Unpack one item at a time and remove the outer packaging.
- Now wash your hands with soap and water for 20-30 seconds and get all the food storage containers out, relevant to what you’ve purchased. Open their lids. If possible pour the contents into your household storage container and dispose of the packaging straight into the open bin.
- Once finished, wash your hands again and seal the food containers, placing everything back into your cupboards.
- All the items that can’t be emptied into something else should be wiped over. Use warm water and a disinfectant mix.
- Stand each container on the side after it’s been washed.
- When you’ve washed all of them wash your hands again and then dry the containers, putting them away as you do so.
- You’ll now need to remove the shopping bags, either throw them away or hang them in the sunshine for several hours as this will kill the virus.
- Don’t forget to disinfect the area where you placed your shopping bags.
That’s it. Enjoy a nice drink until the next time you need to go shopping or order a takeaway.