Is anyone else becoming neurotic?

Annodomini- Pinky parni? Potassium Permanganate -we used it for cleaning salad veg when I lived in Sri Lanka but i think it makes the water OK to wash the veg not, necessarily, protect the veg.

Annabell, that's Pammy Dean, the doctor whose YouTube video I referred to earlier. Fairly straightforward, I thought.

Pinky parni? Potassium permanganate crystals - we used them to purify the water to clean the veg when I lived in Sri Lanka. Not sure it does anything more than that

Until I read this thread, I was feeling fairly happy and mildly confident.
Now, I feel paranoid and upset.

The whole thing makes me feel weary, tired and worn out and pessimistic.
I wish to god I had never read any of it.
It’s just awful.
I now feel utterly depressed

Thank you Gransnet.

For those who want more scientific evidence, there is a BBC report which quotes Professor Sally Bloomfield from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She says to leave shopping for 72 hours or wipe packaging with disinfectant. Is she reputable enough?

Greciangirl your instinct will tell you that much of this is not based on any good evidence but on blind paranoia. Enough is good enough. How on earth can you leave shopping for 72 hours?

GracesGranMK3 I've done it a few times since.....
Never before.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDuwc9KBps

I can't recommend this enough. He suggests dividing your kitchen worktop into 2 , clean and not clean. He puts tape down but I just used a skewer from the drawer. Then you simple put the " unclean " items down and when cleaned move to the other half. It's easy and not overwhelming.

Wish I'd never started to read this thread. I'm not really doing anything different. I'm not at all high risk, I have no health issues at all. DH is Type 2 diabetes but his last review showed his blood sugar to be excellent. He was very unwell with what I thought was mild flu before we knew about the virus, he thinks that's what he had. I know of a few other people who seemed to have had the virus before it was publicised.

Every day I go out about 7am to the local petrol station for our papers. Waitrose reserves the first hour for the elderly so I've been a couple of times, getting there just after opening time. In the afternoon I go for an hour's walk, we're on the edge of open land so well away from anyone else. I've always washed my hands when I come home so no difference there. But I'm not disinfecting anything, just living as we usually do in our moderately hygienic way.

I tried watching that link. He waffles on and on and on. I gave up after five minutes when nothing had happened.

Greymar Thank you for that YouTube link - it's very helpful and I'm going to send it to friends and family.

I got the link from Woodmouse and was initially rather cynical, thinking " Oh no another expert". I found it made great sense and we tied his method today.

5.08 is about the place it starts.

Thanks for that tip, Greymar I’ve watched it from there on. I’m not sure that I’d follow all that tbh. I’ll just eat less, then I won’t have to clean it. It won’t do me any harm to be on a diet! In fact, I’ve been eating less anyway since this stay at home thing.

Exact opposite here, non stop face stuffing! From the clean section .

I think if you stay.home and self isolate you will.be fine. If I.have to.go.get food I use sanitizer and wear a mask. When I get home I.wash my face with hot water. I leave post for three days and sanitize my hands after I.bring it in. There's no point worrying if you are going to.get it. If you stay.home you won't.

I think I might not be eating because I had a cold from my GD (thank you!) which has gone now but left me with little sense of taste or smell. I don’t much enjoy the flavour of cardboard.

Oh, and Greymar - that chap missed a bit of his worktop when he was cleaning it! That made my teeth itch.

Sorry if I’ve missed this, but are we allowed to continue having our regular cleaners? I would hate to discontinue them. I pretend because of their loss of income but really because I dread being without them for the duration. I’d of course comply with any definite directive but haven’t seen one. We try to be in the garden while they’re here and now they wear gloves and masks. What are others doing?

I’ve stopped mine, Winterwhite although I’m still paying her. I decided it wasn’t worth the risk, especially as she cleans public buildings as well as domestic properties.

I'm thinking of stopping mine.
ie me

My DD’s cleaners are refusing to come to her house ( or any house) so I guess it’s their choice, but surely you would want to cancel them coming into your house anyway?

If self employed they will be able to claim money back for lost revenue, or if working for an agency, then will be paid 80% wages by the gov.

I would. Surely the house can 't get that bad if youn are self-isolating and have no visitors.
If, of course, you are physically unable to do anything that is a different matter and you may have but proceed with utmost care.

Yes I cancelled mine from this week. It got to the point that I just didn’t want anyone else coming into our house. I felt bad, but then thought that as she comes from an agency, she will have been paying NI contributions & the agency will have been paying employers’ NI and I pay VAT on the charges. All this is reflected in the amount I pay to the agency, so in view of that I’d expect her to qualify for the 80% and I hope the agency owner gets something from the government too.

Of course if I employed our cleaner directly it would be a different matter and I think I’d feel obliged to pay her at least a proportion of her normal rate.