It's the second weekend our family has been perfecting its isolation and disinfection.
I haven't been anywhere other than my immediate neighborhood since Friday, March 13, 2020, when I got word that The Boy's school was shutting down (and, therefore, I knew I'd be teleworking the next week). If I can mark a date when our family decided to really hunker down, it's Friday the 13th.
We had been accumulating things during the week:
- hand sanitizers (the miniature variety from Bath & Body Works because that's all I could find at that point thanks to hoarding);
- paper towels (24 rolls of Viva from Amazon, which I thought at the time was a ridiculous amount and now wonder why I didn't get more);
- Lots of canned beans;
- Lots of microwave pouches of rice;
- Lots of pasta;
- Lots of frozen veggies;
- Lots of cartons of milk;
- Cereal;
- Lots of chicken breasts to make various things in the Instant Pot;
- Lysol wipes and Lysol spray (just a few items, fewer than it seems we will need, now);
- toiletries; and
- ice cream (because you gotta have some joy).
We did not buy all of the toilet paper, I promise: The fact is that we had already bought an inordinate amount of toilet paper over time thanks to a few months' worth of Amazon Subscribe & Save accidental over-buying. I've been pissed off at those boxes for a couple of months, but now I'm glad they're here. Turns out that I am thankful for my repeated monthly failure to go into Subscribe & Save and skip that month's delivery. Finally, my procrastination has served me well.
Since we don't go out into the world that much, our main focus in our home has been figuring out how to keep our space more sanitary. It's an evolving process, but we are approaching a pattern that we are comfortable with.
It's unlikely that, at present, we would bring the virus into our house, isolated as we are. But if the infection rate gets to 75% or higher, the odds that we might bring the virus into our house from simply going outside for a walk becomes much greater. So we are practicing now for what we hope doesn't happen later. (We hope that you all are also hunkering down too. To those who haven't: stop treating this like a extended snow day -- going to the park with other people, hanging with friends in the evening, letting the kids hang out with each -- the little vectors, making frequent trips to the store.... Social isolation means no socializing and you isolate yourself. Call someone or do FaceTime if you miss voices and faces. Click that link about to see a graphic of what happens if you don't.)
So, anyway, here is what we do, right now, recognizing that this is an evolving process:
- After we have gone outside, before we step inside, we take our shoes off. Then we wipe the bottoms of the shoes with Lysol before bringing them inside.
- We wash our hands after we come back into the house.
- We let 72 hours elapse before we open nonperishable packages that come to our door.
- We wipe down every package that comes into the house with disinfectant.
- We clean surfaces regularly.
- Today, we started using only one door to enter and exit the house, thus limiting the amount of disinfecting we need to do at doorways.
- Today, we started wiping the dog's paws with hand sanitizer when we bring him in. (We were able to acquire a large bottle of it from a friend of my husband's who had bought quite a lot.)
- We do not wear the same clothes a second day.
- We do no wear clothes that we have worn outside the house to bed.
- We bathe every night before going to bed.
This may, and likely does, seem extreme to you, but it's informed by reading the news about the survival rate of the virus on surfaces, by the odds of spread as reported in the news (see above), and by conversations with a doctor friend, whose wife does intake at an ER and who has treated COVID-19 patients. It's what we've come up with. You don't have to copy us, but I thought I'd share what we do. And, as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases said, "if it looks like you're overreacting, you're probably doing the right thing." You only need look to Italy and the lines of army vehicle holding coffins to see where we might be headed. Not to be morbid, but we don't want to be in one of those truck.
Stay safe, friends.
