Read this if you are fed up of washing groceries!

I've never disinfected my shopping. When DH brings it in I unpack it and put it away.
The postman doesn't wear gloves when he delivers the mail, so I've never worried about it.
After handling the shopping or mail, I wash my hands.
Most of the spread of the virus is through droplet and aerosol transmission, so being careful and washing your hands after handling goods should be sufficient I think.

I think it was reasonable to take careful precautions with surfaces and groceries at the outset of the pandemic because not much was known about the virus, and it was assumed that it was spread, as other infections, via door handles and so on.

Now some months on, it is obvious that if surfaces were a big source of transmission, the infection rates and deaths would be far higher.

I concur with some of what you say MOnica but why gloves?

Absolutely Urmstongran. That’s all that’s necessary.

I just think ‘touch what you want’ but don’t suck your fingers, bite your nails, pick your nose (as if) or poke your ears! When you get home, scrub your hands in hot soapy water.
Job done. ✅

Never done it, apart from fruit and some veg.
IMO the people putting the tins on the shelf are taking precautions, we sanitise our hands as we go into the shop, when we come out again and probably wash our hands at home after putting everything away. You would have to be a most unlucky person to catch the virus that way.

Why on earth keep disinfecting everything in the house, it is not as if you will have been having visitors all the time - if you are, that risk is far higher than that from your shopping.

The only people who have been in our house for months are DH and I. When we go out, we immediately wash our hands on our return, where are the virus particles to come from to get into the house and need constant wiping and cleaning?

I use a bleach spray on cans and bottles - it can kill viruses. Dettol wipes do not kill viruses.

When it comes to post, I just wash my hands after I have dealt with it.

I wash food packets and tins in soapy water. Fruit bread rolls etc get put in fresh wrapping. Anything not needed soon gets left in hall cupboard for 3 days without washing. I disinfect light switches bannisters etc almost every day. But we read the papers and radio times so its not perfect. Must read the link now. Hopefully find out I don't need to do the food washing!

I do realise that not everybody subscribed to the idea of 'washing' shopping. I thought the article would perhaps help those people, that still thought it was necessary.

Water meadow ???

Are you mad? You wash your groceries? Stop it now!

No I m not fed up as I ve never done it
I m with you pollyperkins
OCD hugely on the rise
Just wash your hands and forget about it

Thank you for the link, LadyStardust. When I was getting grocery deliveries, I did dispose of packaging and wash things but I tend not to now.
Social distancing, masks, hand washing and ventilation is now the new normal for me.

I think the pandemic has been disastrous for the environment. All those wipes, rubber gloves and disposable masks being thrown away, not to mention plastic bags. I had stopped using plastic carrier bags but then Tesco deliveries came in lots of them!! I refuse to wear Disposable rubber gloves - its better just to wash your hands thoroughly (or use hand sanitiser if you can’t.). Ive been washing disposable masks - can’t see why not. And still trying to buy fruit & veg loose- they all get washed anyway!! And cooking kills the virus. Some greengrocers use paper bags which is preferable.
As to food delivered (or bought in shops) like others I put them away then wash my hands thoroughly , counting up to 20 seconds.

This article says what I believed and have acted upon since the pandemic began. All that is needed is scrupulous personal cleanliness and wearing a mask.

Contact with one or two COVID fragments will not give you COVID as almost any body's immune system will soon send them packing. The viral load needed to trigger an attack needs to be enough to overwhelm the immune sytem and that means it needs to be fresh and active, A dead and decaying viral load, such as on inanimate surface is going to be incapable of generating an infection.

The way to get the infection is personal contact and inhaling the recent exhale form an infected person.

I try to do as much of my shopping as possible in open air and well ventilated outlets like market stalls and farm shops, if you think there is any danger, personally I do not, I wear gloves when shopping. I also always wear a mask and I have done both since lockdown began. I visit a relatively small supermarket as soon as it opens in the morning, At 7.30 it is virtually empty and the shop is at its cleanest. Again I wear a mask and gloves.

I'm another who took ages to wash all the shopping when I brought it home or had it delivered but stopped after a few weeks as I thought it seemed OTT. I've always washed fruit and veg before preparing it and can't wait to wash my hands when I've been out somewhere - especially using a shopping trolley. A friend who worked in a supermarket once told me there were more germs on the handle than on the toilet seat!

I agree the social distancing, masks and hand washing are the best protection but find it infuriating when I see folks wandering around with the mask under their noses - do they not realise we breathe through them as well as our mouths !!

I have always washed fruit in soapy water, thoroughly rinsed and dried it as soon as I have brought it home. (Long before Corona.) Apples and citrus fruit come up really shiny with a lovely polish and look good in the fruit bowl - more inviting, so are more readily picked up and eaten, and can be bitten into with no compunction.

Salads can only be washed in cold, clear water, so I have just been extra thorough about this since lockdown.

However, on reading the article linked to in the OP, I see that spraying cartons and cans with disinfectant is OTT and I won't be doing that any more.

I shall continue to remove any outer packaging before putting things away where this is feasible - it can't do any harm, and it is always handy not to have to wrestle with plastic and cardboard when you're trying to get a meal ready in a hurry.

Having witnessed the effect on someone with OCD, I am glad I am not affected.

I, for several months, sprayed all tins and packaging before putting away. Fruit and veg I washed before use, as normal. Once I read the logic behind the non- necessity of doing this, I stopped the spraying.

I think masks and good hand washing are our greatest protectors.

I never joined in with the wiping down. Just put the groceries away then washed my hands thoroughly afterwards.

I thought ‘what use would a bacterial wipe be against a virus?’ so didn’t bother.

What about post ?
Do those of you who disinfect food packages also do the same with your post?

I read how some people stripped off after a food shop, put their clothes, including the coat in the washing machine and then jumped in the shower.

We all react in different ways I guess.

To Suzannah's post

And those are just the people that we see! I am concerned that the same people - and those who sneeze all over stuff - and don't wear their masks properly or at all, are the same people who pick up my groceries before me, to read labels and to pick over stuff, handle tins, packets and put it back or change their minds. The trolley handles we can wipe, just in case. We can wash our own hands thoroughly but we never see how little others do towards keeping us all Covid free. So I still find it quite hard to relax and accept the so-called hygiene habits of strangers. And if I see just one more nose hanging over a mask or a mask held in the hand or worn around the neck, I might just have an all-time hissy fit........

Same here- never washed groceries, just hands and wash fruit and veg. Only change I have made, is to re-wash any pre washed stuff, like bags fo salad- although generally buy a head of lettuce and wash/prepae myself.

Truly worries about the use of wipes- an absolute ecological disaster as in the UK - they all go into landfill- medieval and very worrying- all those viruses piling up into landfill

Saw this as well.

I've never disinfected food or anything else, other than normal cleaning. It worries me that so much bleach is in use, and I agree Calendargirl, I wish I had shares in some of these companies.

Sadly many people will never use their masks properly, just as they still don't wash their hands properly. I still see women leaving public toilets without washing their hands.