Protect Your Family from COVID-19

Let's start with a great resource. What is the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) current understanding about transmission from their website?

• Spread from person to person within 6 feet via respiratory droplets
• Transmission via contaminated surfaces has NOT been documented
• Infected, but non-symptomatic people play a huge role in transmission
• Transmission through droplets much more common than fomites (objects or materials which are likely to carry infection, such as clothes, utensils, and furniture.)
• "Current evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials."
• "Cleaning of visibly dirty surfaces followed by disinfection is a best practice measure for prevention of COVID-19 and other viral respiratory illnesses in households and community settings."
• Personal hygiene, precaution, and protection is the #1 way to protect yourself. Wear a filtering mask, protective nitrile, latex, or vinyl gloves. Keep your distance of 6 feet. Wash your hands frequently, especially after removing gloves or potential exposure for 20 seconds with soap & water. I'll talk more on PPE in the 3rd episode.

Now that we understand what the CDC recommends and the "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting", let's shift gears to safely bringing groceries, mail, and packages into your home. The best science we have so far is that the Coronavirus can survive on varying surfaces for varying lengths of time. Below is a overview of the surfaces from these National Institutes of Health and WebMD articles.

• Copper (pennies) - 4 hours
  
• Aluminum - 8 hours
  
• Textiles (rags, towels, clothing) - 12-24 hours
  
• Cardboard - 24 hours
  
• Plastics / Counters / Metals (cans, stainless) - 2-3 days
  
• Wood - 4 days
  
• Glass / Ceramics / Paper - Hard to determine - up to 5 days

Let's pull it all together. When it comes to disinfecting our groceries, we choose a disinfectant that is food safe. Therefore, our family uses isopropyl alcohol 70%. It kills the corona virus in 60 seconds fully wet and disinfects other pathogens in 5 minutes. We do 5 minutes to be safe. You can use also use grain alcohol (ethanol 95%) which is also food safe. If you do not have alcohol, use what you have that is food safe, which is clearly on the back label. If you only have chemical disinfectants, make sure to fully disinfect and then fully rinse each item under water with soap and water. The last resort would be to skip the disinfection and either wash everything with soap and water or allow your groceries to sit in your trunk for up to 5 days so they are safe.
As a family, here's our process for groceries, mail, and packages. This is a pain and probably overkill, but we are taking every precaution. We open mail and packages outside wearing gloves if possible, bringing the contents inside as they have already safe (24+ hours in the mail). We bring all groceries inside the kitchen and line up on the floor. We toss the plastic bags they were in, remove the cereals and similar foods from their boxes and toss the boxes. We fully wash the produce with soap and water. We disinfect the rest for 5 minutes with IPA 70%, wipe off. We wash our hands properly and put the food away. Another option is to wash and disinfect the perishables right away and leave the rest in your trunk for 5 days to kill off anything else. This is likely to work, but I'd still rather disinfect it when we bring it home.

Please take the necessary precautions. Wash your hands often. Clean and disinfect. Wear protective gloves and masks when out in public. Disinfect your mail, packages, and groceries. And stay home as much as possible!