Shopping has become a risky sport and, after episodes of mass hysteria and compulsive shopping, with toilet paper as the absolute protagonist, during the first days of the quarantine due to the new coronavirus, supermarkets saw themselves obliged to take measures in the face of the high risk of these behaviors. They are dangerous, not only because of the shortages that can be triggered when shopping as if there were no tomorrow , but because of the enormous probability of contagion that exists when such crowds form.
In general, commercial surfaces have reduced their opening hours to the public, allow a maximum number of people inside and force queues in the street if the capacity is full (with a separation of one and a half meters between people ). Other supermarkets also make available to consumers and require the use of disinfectant gel and single-use gloves, in addition to cleaning the handles of carts and baskets.
However, there are a series of measures that we should comply with if we want to protect ourselves from the coronavirus.
What to do before leaving home
It seems obvious to say at this point in the movie, but it is important that if you have symptoms of COVID-19 such as a cough, fever or shortness of breath, you should not go shopping to avoid spreading the virus. And another note: the supply is assured, do not destroy.
Having said all this, before leaving home it is advisable to carry a bottle of disinfectant gel with you and if you used your own bags to buy before, throw them in as well. If you usually go with the shopping cart, you can take it without problem.
In the almost certain case that when leaving your home you have touched a button such as the elevator or a handle or doorknob, it will be fine to apply disinfectant gel. If you don’t have one, don’t touch your face at any time.
What to do inside the supermarket
When you get to the supermarket try, by all means, to maintain a minimum distance of one meter, one meter and a half with the rest of the people . For Esther Gallardo Pérez, doctor in Chemical Sciences and researcher at the Hospital Doce de Octubre in Madrid, this is basic and one of the most effective protection measures against contagion. In fact, Gallardo points out that practices such as wearing gloves at home and a mask (when you are not infected because if you are, you should be quarantining at home), give a false sense of security that can lead to contagion . With a false sense of security we mean that wearing gloves and no matter how clean your hands are, if you touch surfaces that may be contaminated and you put your hands to your face believing that you are protected by gloves, you will be infected in the same way as It would happen if you had bare hands. “Yes, I think it’s good that they put single-use gloves at the entrance of the supermarket so that people who may be infected but asymptomatic do not handle the products. At the exit you have to throw away your gloves ”.
Laura Soler, a collaborating professor in the UOC Health Sciences Studies and an expert in food safety, warns of cross contamination that can occur in the supermarket. “If you touch the cars, the shelves, the refrigerators of the refrigerators and freezers, your mobile … In short, any surface, later do not touch fresh food without packaging without first washing your hands with disinfectant gel.” For this reason, the expert recommends that the first thing you buy is fresh, not packaged .
While we are making the purchase we have to avoid at all costs touching our faces. If we have not taken the fresh products without packaging at the beginning, we must apply disinfectant gel to avoid contaminating. “You have to avoid massively touching products that are not going to be bought to avoid possible infections. What you touch, you buy ” , says Soler.
If we cough or sneeze, we will always cover ourselves with our elbow . If you use a tissue, you have to throw it away and then wash your hands.
When paying for the purchase, it is necessary to avoid the movement of cash because the new coronavirus can remain for at least 6 hours in the copper coins, according to the results obtained in the study Aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 ( SARS-CoV-2) compared to SARS-CoV-1 , recently published. Let’s always pay by card.
What to do when you get home
The first thing we must do is wash our hands with soap and water as soon as we arrive from the street.
“Once the purchase is to be placed, it is necessary to avoid touching the face in case said food has been infected by asymptomatic carriers,” Soler tells us. You can wipe the packaged products with a cloth moistened with soap and water or bleach diluted in water.
As Miguel Ángel Lurueña, doctor in food science and technology and agricultural technical engineer, says in his blog Petroleum jelly beans: ” There are no specific studies on the disinfection of food against the coronavirus but considering its structural characteristics, it is assumed that the Conventional methods destroy it. For this, the recommended method is the use of bleach suitable for food use (this must be specified on the label). We must also follow the specific recommendations for this purpose that are shown on the label “. As a general rule, the AESAN (Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition) recommends washing fruits and vegetables as follows:
- Wash them under the running tap, even if they are to be eaten peeled, as this prevents contamination from passing from the knife to the food.
- Use specific brushes for the surfaces of hard-skinned fruits (melon, watermelon…) or some vegetables (cucumber, zucchini…).
- Dry with paper towels.
- Also, if you are going to eat raw fruit with skin, raw vegetables (lettuce, spinach …) or raw vegetables with skin (cucumber), immerse them for 5 minutes in drinking water with 1 dessert teaspoon of bleach (4.5 ml) for each 3 liters of water. Afterwards, rinse them with plenty of running water.
- The bleach must be labeled “suitable for drinking water disinfection.”
Pick up the bags and wash your hands again. If the bags are single-use, get rid of them. If not, you can clean them with disinfectant or throw them in the washing machine.
“If we carry a shopping cart, we can leave it in the hall (not enter it in the other rooms of the house). If it is not possible, then scrub the floor that has had contact with the wheels of the cart with disinfectant (bleach or other floor chemicals with disinfectant power) ”, recommends Soler. Gallardo affirms that the probability of a contagion occurring because the wheels of the cart have passed just over the coronavirus or someone infected has coughed, spoken or sneezed on top of them is very small but it does seem convenient to clean, also with the option of the soap and water, the area that the cart touched. Chemistry also recommends passing a cloth soaked in disinfectant through the handle of the cart.
