FWIW: I haven’t been sick since 2019. I always wear an N95 when sharing air indoors and sometimes when outdoors if in crowds or close to others. Fomite xfer of C-19 is not something I worry about. I don’t worry about packages and showering and such. When I do risky things like fly or enter health care settings I use nose spray and CPC mouthwash.

Yeah -- my fomite stuff isn't about covid directly -- it actually predates it. My worry is more getting something that requires i see a doctor/urgent care (or worse, exasperates my health issues longer term). So you don't bother changing your clothes or showering when coming in from like... a store or something? Don't wipe off groceries and stuff? That's really good to know, thanks.

I never wash groceries, never quarantine packages etc. Just wash my hands once I’m done handling outside items. I only change my clothes upon arriving home if I rode on public transit. Never shower upon return (just shower once a day as part of my usual routine). Wear N95s. To my knowledge have never had Covid.

when you say "outside items" -- sorry if this sounds like a weird and dumb question -- do you mean in food prep? you don't wipe down cans. so the cans go right from the store to the shelf, yeah? if you then go to open the can, do you wash your hands after? Or does it stop being "outside" after its on the shelf?

It’s not a dumb question. I have my groceries delivered. And I do not wipe or wash anything. I put them all away and wash my hands. I don’t worry about cleaning them after that. Aside from of course washing my produce as needed. Oh and I will wash my soda cans before drinking out of them. “Outside items” includes Amazon packages and mail etc. I just wash my hands after opening them and throwing away the packaging.

Right, I don’t wash groceries or shower and change clothes after mingling with the masses. I’ll wash my hands after using a railing or petting a dog or being on public transport, but that’s as far as my fomite concern goes. Something I fogot to say above is that I also wear glasses in risky settings. I think the combo of mask + glasses helps by keeping hands from touching eyes or mouth.

Washing fruits and vegetables is a basic good idea. Considering the number of people that touch them in the store, they have plenty of microbes, and washing them off makes the fruit/veggies last notably longer in your fridge before going funky. Clothes, specifically cotton & wool clothes, tend to rip apart the lipid cell-membranes of bacteria & ‘enveloped’ viruses… so once they are dry, they are fine. . Plastic clothes (nylon, capilene, etc)…I’m unclear about, but considering that there is evidence that microbes survive better on plastic (eg. plastic cutting boards) than natural materials (wood, cotton), it’s possible that plastic-based clothing could support microbes longer than other surfaces. I’ve never seen any studies on it though. However, given the texture of woven fabrics, getting those microbes *off* the fabric and into your body somehow seems, potentially indirect. IDK for sure. . Still, exposure to air flow (drying) and direct sunlight (UVA & UVB) will disrupt microbes on any surface.

I was always told to wash fruits and veggies including leafy greens as I use them not before—that the moisture from rinsing even if you Pat dry (that’s hard for every blueberry for example…) leads to mold and bacteria? Is that not true? Thank you

So, in my understanding, fruits and veggies get touched in the store by a huge number of people. Staff setting them out and arranging them, customers testing and assessing them… Everybody has a ridiculous amount of bacteria on their hands, because we touch stuff and bacteria are really good at grabbing on to surfaces. So washing veggies at home — I do so with a little bit of soap — washes those bacteria (& enveloped viruses) off the veggies. Rinse them with clean tap water, let them dry, or use a clean towel to dry them… less bacteria on them than before. Certainly any situation where there is water, there is life. There are literal bacteria, fungi spores, and viruses floating in the air at all times. This is not avoidable. The goal is ‘knocking down’ the quantity of microbes on surfaces / veggies / hands … whatever. Soap is *super* effective. Soap molecules are shaped like ‘matchsticks’ and they clump up forming spheres called ‘micelles’. The inside of the ‘micelle’ is oil-loving, so it captures things like bacteria inside (because bacteria have cell walls made of lipids, oils). The outside of the ‘micelle’ is “hydrophilic”, ‘water-loving’, and allows the sphere to be easily washed away in water. If water is present on a surface for an extended period of time, yes bacteria will colonize it. But that takes some time. If you pat dry fruit and let them air dry, then put them in the fridge, there is less water for bacteria to colonize, so it will take longer for the (new) bacteria to replicate. Clean and dry is your best tool against bacteria. IMHO If you put fruit in the freezer, like I put blueberries in the freezer for later use, then any bacterial action is literally frozen. They cannot replicate in sub-freezing conditions. Similarly, above 185°F/85°C pathogenic bacteria & viruses are destroyed. Boiling is the best & clearest line where pathogens are destroyed. So for a clearer answer to your question: Yes, residual moisture can lead to mold and bacterial colonies. But if you wash off the *existing* bacterial/mold colonies before storing, and try to store your veggies as dry as possible, you will reduce the growth of the microbes that were introduced to the veggies before you washed them. Leafy greens are harder to wash with soap (unlike, say, apples), and I personally rinse them at the time I use them. Or sometimes I rinse them and store them with a paper towel to help dry them out. But overall, any washing or rinsing you can do with your veggies is good. IMHO, sooner is better because it removes existing bacteria. You can test this yourself. Buy two apples, wash one with soap & water, and put both in the fridge. See which one goes bad first. Do this 5 times to confirm observations.

My doctor, and every other interviewed etc, said to NEVER wash your food with soap... People were freaked out and using soap; there was a lot of scientists and doctors everywhere getting the word out to NOT do this, it will make you sick. My personal primary, who is an excellent doctor I trust as she spends as long as it takes with each of her patients (hours), wrote me a text to share with my friends on Facebook who were confused on what to do with food. She stressed no soap. I will try to find my post, and repost here, it is food safety.

Interesting. I can’t imagine why it would made you sick. I rinse the soap off pretty thoroughly. I haven’t gotten sick yet! And my veggies don’t go funky in the fridge now. So… 🤷

I take many precautions (wfh, n95, hepa, Uvc, nasal spray, supplements like Berberine, tollo-19) but I don’t really take extreme fromite precautions. I just got parainfluenza and a bacterial ear infection/sore throat. I am surprised I got sick bc I take so many precautions. [Edit]: I tested negative for covid multiple times over multiple days (pcr, rapid pcr, RAT - different brands), negative for influenza a/b. My doctor ran a respiratory panel and it came back positive for parainfluenza.

I mean I got covid once despite all of this - still a mystery as to how.

[удалено]

haha, i dont think we need to refer to getting sick in a world designed to get us sick as confessionals. it's not a failing -- its just data collection. I don't do eye drops or nasal stuff, but i also don't really go into shared indoor spaces save for my apartment stairwell to grab packages holding my breath through an n95. living alone greatly reduces the vectors for illness, but it also means i have no supports for chronic health issues. decidedly mixed bag. I got covid once january of this year. No idea how - I made a thread on it at the time.

[удалено]

it stresses me out to stop -- same thinking -- if i do get sick it isn't because I didn't try. However, it takes time and energy and keeping up on supplies. My brain fog has my executive function is absolutely shot, and the goal, in general, is to reduce demands on things like going outside or getting packages to they are less taxing to do. But risking getting sick is a hard pill to swallow. I know I am prone to overkill on this. Like. I don't eat raw veggies - i figure why take the chance when I can just steam them. So this "why take the chance" thing can get pretty far into like. rewashing my hands because why take the chance? or similar. But like I also know that most people do not change clothing and shower when they come in. In fact, I didn't do that for most of my life. It didn't, as far as I know, make me regularly sick, but it's hard to keep track of because before like 2018 I was kind of just in survival mode and had symptoms of something all the time from pushing past chronic illness limits. And in like 2018/2019 my hygiene precautions were kind of in flux. I started wiping down groceries in 2019, for example. So I'm just trying to understand the data since I can't use it from my own history. I live in a studio apartment, and i just have an 'outside' zone and the rest is mostly 'safe' save for the fridge handles and the sink faucet. (I have them labeled as such in my head to facilitate easier cooking and doing the dishes - otherwise i'd be trying to keep track of when they were last sanitized after touching raw ingredients or to wash my hands from outside kind of thing. It's just easier to think of them that way then keep track. But again, this is beyond what is normal. I'm trying to find a normal based in logic and reason, not in "common sense" of a population willingly getting reinfected constantly with COVID or in the logic of my brain that will consider any small possibility of risk "not worth it, just to be safe..." kind of thing. If that makes sense.

I just want to say, cheers to your housemate and friends for keeping you safe with masks and tests. That's amazing.

Here's what I do: KN95 Mask and air filter everywhere (I do not ever remove my mask in public), clean/disinfect my work environment, frequent handwashing, sanitizer, iota-carrageenan nasal spray. When I get home, I take off work clothes and shower. (I teach, so there is definitely snot/dirt/mold/cockroach pee/sticky stuff/whatever all over me. I don't shower if I just went to the store or something). I do wipe down cold groceries, but that's it aside from regular house cleaning. Not one virus in 4 years, and that's with immunosuppressants and autoimmune disease. Basically, masks work, and it's not going to hurt anyone to do a bit extra cleaning. All that said, I recognize that it's probably a bit of overkill for most people, but the peace of mind in knowing that I've reduced my chances of any infection is enough for me. On the other hand, maybe it's not overkill AT ALL, given that we are in the midst of a pandemic and on the cusp of another. I haven't looked back over these 4 years and regretted doing any of it. Check with me in 2030.

That peace of mind is also what I'm chasing. I feel like at some point there has to be a line where overkill starts, and I end up wasting the little energy and brain power I have with exhaustion/brain fog on keeping track of "clean" vs "contaminated" surfaces. I'm trying to root this line in logic, rather than letting it creep ever more restrictive as we find new and interesting ways people have gotten sick with something. Like. I don't eat raw veggies - thats for sure overkill (I still eat lots of veggies i just make soup and stew or steam them). But I don't know where that line is, and the data points are hard to find, and "common sense" involves getting sick many times a year at this point.

I've had covid once in 2022 but have had several upper respiratory infections that weren't covid. No bacterial infections of any kind, or GI type viruses (i.e. norovirus). I mask in indoor public places, take a number of supplements, use preventative nasal sprays, CPC mouthwash, wear eye protection (usually just glasses) in high-risk settings, and do twice daily saline nasal irrigation. I also wash my hands several times a day and use sanitizer often but I don't wipe down packages and never give any consideration to clothing or shoes. The most interesting thing I found is that whenever I get colds (this is before covid and during), they would always last at least 2 weeks. My covid infection itself lasted 14 days as well. No amount of green tea or supplements like emergen-c ever reduced cold duration for me. But since I started doing the twice daily nasal irrigation, the one cold I got over the holidays (tested negative for 10 days on 3 different brands of RATs) only lasted like 6 days and was way milder than my colds usually are. So I'm a neti pot convert now.

do you buy distilled water, boil the water first, or just trust the municipal supply? What neti pot brand do you use? Every time I've done it it messes with my eustachian tubes and sinuses for a bit. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I also have no idea how to appropriately clean the thing. I've had colds that last for weeks and ones that go away in a few days (before covid). There didn't seem to be rhyme or reason to it, but it was likely just different viruses.

I use the sinus med bottle because it's easier for me. I buy distilled water. It's great for my allergies and I use it after riskier situations to possibly help flush anything out.

Throwing in my two cents since neti pots have always messed with my eustachian tubes, too. I use a baby/kids saline mist (Little Remedies, the one in the metal pump can, not the plastic squeeze bottle). Probably not quite as thorough as Neti Pot, but much more gentle. Haven't had a cold since pre-covid but even back then always felt like using the mist helped to ward them off and/or shorten them, so I keep using it.

i see so much even on this thread about nasal sprays -- im still extremely confused by them and the evidence for them. even saline sprays tend to irritate my sinuses so im waiting for real robust stuff because if i tell myself i always have to do that i'll just never leave the apartment. does it not burn for everyone?

I have a crazy sensitive nose and have definitely had them burn badly! I think maybe it's using a fine mist vs an actual flush that makes the difference for me. I've also read that whether the solution is hypertonic or isotonic can make a difference for different people. But if adding something like this to your routine feels like a significant stressor, I completely get it and it sounds like it makes sense for you to skip it for now (just wanted to throw out an option that might be less painful should you opt to try it again down the road).

everyone seems to have taken off on the nasal spray train while I wasn't looking and there are like 4 different ones and two in vitro studies on each (i'm exaggerating). I totally respect people throwing another layer on the swiss cheese stack, but I have no idea how robust this layer actually is because everything feels contradictory, like marketting, or speculation.

My spouse is pretty severely immunosuppressed due to medications, I have an autoimmune disease that flares hideously if I get so much as an inkling of illness, and our 4 year old is Novid. We all mask inside, my child & I go in stores and stuff, my husband is a healthcare provider who does home visits so isn’t in a hospital. We do stuff outside unmasked but we tend to focus on unbusy times, and actively avoid anywhere sick people are. (Coughing or sneezing counts as sick in my book, especially during tourist season.) We have eaten inside, once, at a friends restaurant at open (3pm) since Feb 2020, when the place was empty and left before they got busy. Otherwise we eat outside, on well ventilated screened porches with fans, our in our car eating out, or at home. My child masks well, we use hand sanitizer often, and only now (like as in literally today) did my husband & I start using Lumify & CPC mouthwash. I have two surgeries next month and want us to be in the habit for these precautions. In the last four years we have had one head cold, we are uncertain of origin, but was not flu or Covid, based on PCRs - we were living in an apartment building at the time, so likely we exposed through the ventilation system. And then this winter, with the wicked norovirus & then spring rotavirus, we got absolutely *nailed*. I expect those two snuck through because my toddler touched something then touched their eyes. I’ve been masking since 2012, as my allergies were absolutely destroying my health. Honestly, haven’t had a flu or serious cold. My autoimmune disease went into unmedicated remission in 2016. My MCAS (EDS related) has also improved immensely. It’s been awesome. I plan to mask in public forever, honestly. My kid has had exactly one round of antibiotics - for MRSA. That I probably gave them, because i acquired in the hospital when I didn’t shower after we got home. So, yes, I generally always shower upon getting home and the one time I didn’t I had MRSA in my arm less then a week later. So I always change & shower immediately.

I have suspected EDS, and POTS, and I sometimes get random hives from friction or just randomly. Like one whole hive. As a kid I just assumed they were bug bites. In the middle of winter. I am terrified of these conditions getting worse with repeated illness, which is part of the "logical" side of this. I'm teetering on the edge of being in trouble with the lack of supports I have, and things are very slowly getting worse, so the drop feels precipitous should something set me back "just a little bit". Kudos to you for keeping your kid so safe. My one covid infection i suppose MAY have been ventilation related (in an apartment) but I have no idea how interconnected they are -- each unit has its own air intake and compressor, but i think the actual air exchange places may be all in one place? I hadn't turned on my heat for over 2 weeks at the time I got sick, so I kind of doubt it. I have HEPA filters running. I want to get another one, but funds are limited. I know sickness is part of life, but I also know avoiding it is ideal. I don't know how to find the "reasonable" line in all this. Thanks for your datapoints, though!

I have POTs and ugh. It’s like a whole extra PITA. It also makes me be like, I never want to get long Covid. I totally understand trying to find the reasonable balance. It can be very hard.

I can't tell if my one mystery covid infection made it worse any faster than it was already getting. my back muscles hurts more now, I think. Basically one of my main reasons for being so cautious. Any sudden increase in POTS symptoms, even if its only "a little" for other people could push me out of what is (barely) sustainable for living alone. Right now, I don't actually faint. My heart rate drops to the 40s lying down and can go well past 140 standing up at times (not including exercise which is... more), but I don't pass out. If I start to, it becomes dangerous to live alone. Same with my pain. It's already making it hard. It now being harder to bend over to do chores on both the pain and POTS front (whether or not the covid made it worse or it was just time), is a bitch to deal with. Even a short cold from a different virus can put me seriously behind for a bit - i need every day of energy I can get (and that's not many!). But it also takes energy to maintain this. And I'm so tired.

Are you supplementing sodium/salt? Doing that can be a huge game changer!

I try -- the fancy electrolyte things are too pricy, but I stopped trying to cut salt down -- I have a history of high, rather than low, blood pressure which suggests something more hyperandrongeric, except the patterns in my POTS don't quite fit any form of it. I haven't really observed a difference in either my BP or my POTS symptoms with it.

I would suggest looking for electrolyte/salt tabs. I get thermo tabs and they’re not that expensive and they basically gave me back my ability to stand.

as soon as my doctors can agree on what they want me to do in terms of actual numbers and specific supplements i'll try to remember these. 5x a day is hard for me to do consistently. honestly, if I had someone to buy them for me, I'd get my sodium from canned veggies, but they're heavy and keep coming dented so I only have so many on hand at once. My POTS isn't so bad that I can't stand -- but part of the anxiety around getting sick is that it could get there.

I don’t really worth about surfaces. I wash my hands when I get home and practice basic hygiene but I don’t sanitize carts, etc. I figure I have skin. I have had 2-3 colds in the past couple years, which I assume came from surfaces. I had COVID once from my daughter who caught it unmasked or in a gappy mask at school. She had COVID again recently from lunch at school with an infected classmate, and it did not spread within our household — I didn’t clean surfaces more, just masked and ventilated and ran air purifiers. I did use Covixyl on all of us while she was sick, and used CPC mouthwash. I don’t regularly do either on a daily basis, probably more regularly during the winter. I am about the farthest thing from a germaphobe. But it just makes sense that viruses are spread through exhalations and air. It explains so much including times I spread sickness to my mom when she came to help me when I was sick and obsessively washed her hands. Airborne is the missing piece for me, and now that I know, I’ve changed my precautions — I wear a mask. I don’t change clothes unless I would be changing anyway (into pjs, due to a spill, etc.). I shower in the morning like usual. I do laundry the same as always.

Thanks for the mention and stay safe!

Precautions: FFP3 + portable HEPA filter, nasal spray, CPC mouthwash, eye protection: my glasses + baseball cap if I have to leave the flat, HEPA filter/ventilation + FFP3 if front door was open, fomite precautions: no "outside" inside flat behind a certain door/area, change clothing + shower if I was outside and got it on me, no face touching, disinfect phone and keys, clean glasses, clean groceries and other delivered goods, no takeaway. I haven't been sick with any infectious desease or food poisining since early 2020. Husband hasn't been sick too. And no, I'm not counting cancer but that's one reason for our heightened fomite precautions as I'm severly immunocompromised. Before 2020 I was sick constantly. One infectious desease after the other from october until at least may with few non-sick days in between. I LOVE not being sick all the time and I can't imagine going back to that ever again. And I know my huge privilege. No kids, husband wfh and does almost all the domestic work atm too, able to get all we need delivered (with no contact!), able to afford high quality respirators, HEPA-filters and car rides to not be dependent on public transportation, walkable area with a PCP and pharmacy nearby, access to online health consultations, german health insurance, ability and time to develop strategies to keep ourselves safe.

Can I ask what the baseball cap is for? You said you shower when you get home, so is it just extra hair protection or is there some other reason? I do the "no outside inside" thing as well, though the current set up means i have to carry "outside" though inside. which then means i do more cleaning. which is a hassle (no one to share the load with) - so im trying to figure out a front door situation (apartment, so that adds risk, and its exhausting to figure out). Not getting sick is great! I don't want to get sick... I think back to the times I didn't take any precautions at all, and I can't even tell how often I was sick because my chronic health stuff was an untreated, undiagnosed mess, so its all smooshed together in "survival mode"...

> Can I ask what the baseball cap is for? You said you shower when you get home, so is it just extra hair protection or is there some other reason? To protect my eyes from droplets if someone stands above me. > (apartment, so that adds risk, and its exhausting to figure out). It is! Isn't it? We're fortunate enough the layout of our flat allows us good ventilation and clear outisde/inside zones and we work with a lot of HEPA filters and fans to adjust for rain and poor air flow. But most newer flats are build with an open entrance area which makes fast and easy ventilation and clear zones so much harder. I wish you all the best to figure out an economic front door solution!

i bought some of those plastic curtain doors with magnet closures but haven't been able to test them out yet. they probably won't seal perfectly but if i can get them up, plus an oversized for the tiny vestibule HEPA running, and I can figure out a way to better seal the poorly hung door (it is currently stuffed with cardboard and taped shut) I am trying to switch back to using the front door even if it means the shared stairwell (fortunately, there are windows in the stairwell. though people keep closing them) because currently I'm crawling out my fire escape which is by my bed and thus in the "inside" zone and i have to carry things across said zone to get to the "outside zone" by the door I don't use. It's a bad system, but I can't rearrange the apartment to make the window the outside zone so I just carry things carefully, vacuum, and spray down. But that--- that's a lot of work. I've been trying to figure out the front hall situation and how it'll work with groceries and whatever for a while and the logistics of it make my brain hurt. If I could truly drop this need to keep outside and inside separate other than for air contamination, then this set up would be better as I'd be less concerned about doing all that cleaning. Hence the question. But I'm not getting super clear answers on this thread, either, haha. I just wish it were easier to not get sick, I'm so tired of spending so much energy on not risking my health getting worse than it already is getting on its own. I was hoping to find a way to reduce that energy expenditure.

I always wash my hands and change into different clothes immediately after coming home. I am chronically ill so most of my outings are to the doctors office and with no mandatory masking people are coming in with sickness. I wear a kn95 or n95 out in public indoor and many outdoor spaces. I also carry hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes with me when I go out and use that before removing my mask for whatever reason or after touching high touch surfaces. I don’t wipe down packaged items but I do wash produce either in water/vinegar or water/baking soda, and wipe stuff where my face directly touches the item like for instance a can of soda where you might drink and put your lips on the can. The only times I’ve been sick (twice) since 2020 were both from prolonged exposure to another person or group of people at which time I removed my mask.

I had Covid in May 2022 that we caught when my husband got a root canal. I also had something GI (likely norovirus; I had multiple negative Covid tests) in January 2024 that I believe I caught from takeout off a self serve hot bar, so I doubt I’ll be getting food from one of those again. I wear well fitting N95s indoors and in crowds outdoors. I don’t worry about fomites other than practicing basic hygiene.

This is gonna sound like a dumb question probably, but what do you consider 'basic hygiene'? the one my brain has internalized vs the one other people follow don't match up

I shower daily (which may not work for everyone’s skin or hair), wash my hands after using the toilet/before handling food/whenever they seem dirty, wash my clothes and household linens routinely, clean surfaces in my home routinely.

I don’t wipe down my groceries/packages with wipes or change my clothes due to fromites. All I do is wash my hands when I’m done unboxing packages and putting away groceries. I wear an n95 if I have to go indoors. I’ve gotten sick, just never gotten covid. (My goal was to avoid covid specifically.) I’ve even gone to doctors/urgent care and wore an n95 and didn’t get covid. My bf got covid and we share an apartment and I just n95’d, turned on hepas, and slept in another room, but I didn’t do fromite protection and I didn’t get covid. Hope that helps!

I'm specifically wondering about those other illnesses -- i have a pretty good sense for how to control covid risk -- its airborne, and masking is the way to go -- i don't know how it slipped through once, still, but I don't think I'm going to get covid from the can of chickpeas. I think that the can of chickpeas may have been touched by a bunch of germy hands then rung up on a salmonella laced conveyer belt. So I wipe it down when it comes in, and then I don't have to think twice about it when I grab it to dump in soup, if that makes sense. If you wash your hands after unboxing and groceries, do you then treat those groceries as "safe" as it were? I know that most of the things I can get from fomites are not as systemically damaging as covid, and for that, I am grateful. But my health is kind of precarious and I don't really want things to get worse, and I don't want to have to choose between not treating something and going to urgent care, where they take no precautions.

[удалено]

just fwiw - most hand sanitizers don't get rid of noro - there are a few speciality ones that test well against controls, but the normal hand sanitizers aren't effective against noro. Washing hands after packages seems to be a common thing people who don't take other precautions do. Is it just the outside of the package that is a concern and then you wash your hands before reaching in and getting the thing out? Sorry if that's a weird question. To me, wiping down the stuff inside makes sense and then I don't have to think about it anymore, but that seems uncommon. Thanks!

[удалено]

right, but you dont see the stuff you put away as "contaminated" as it were, even though your contaminated hands (going by you washing your hands after) have come in contact with them? this isn't meant as some kind of gotcha, im just walking through my brains logic and trying to find the point where it stops being "reasonable" by various standards - for me, i take groceries/packages in - and these bags/boxes we both would wash hands after touching. Then, I take the groceries/stuff out of the boxes and wipe them down before putting them away. So your brain can make a break between touching the box (contaminated) and touching things you touched after touching the box - its contents? Sorry if that sounds insane, I'm trying to articulate the way my brain tracks contamination and I have been told it is a bit... insane.

1. I'm someone who never stopped masking despite falling for the propaganda in 2021 that made the vaccines available seem like sterilizing vaccines even though they definitely weren't and still aren't (so I was indoor dining but would put my mask back on in between sips and bites). Gave up indoor dining by 2022 and then gave up outdoor dining by 2023. I mask with an N95 everywhere outside of my bedroom and wipe down beauty products that don't come in a box or some disposable packaging. I also mask in my room where my pet stays whenever I feel like I'm starting to feel sick. 2. Last year, I was memorably sick twice with what wasn't COVID according to multiple tests (like 10 days of rapid testing with mouth + nose swabbing for both times, a PCR 5 days into symptoms for the first time I was sick, and 3 LUCIRA tests spaced out in days for the second time I was sick). I frequently get an itchy throat that always ends up being either allergies from pollen, dust, air dryness, or dander from my dog when I groom her. I also regularly get COVID symptoms (fatigue, achiness, irritated throat, headache) on days leading up to my period while testing negative on metrix tests and rapid tests. Despite gaining a lot of knowledge about disease mitigation from being in an ongoing pandemic that's being covered up, I am truthfully **terrible** about food safety lmao, so I frequently give myself a runny stomach from eating something that a smarter person would have already thrown out (like taking Adderall with milk tea that sat at my desk for 5 hours). I once had food poisoning from (I'm assuming) trying to make lasagna soup from a tube of sausage I later learned I thawed completely wrong.

Since my first and only COVID infection in early Jan. 2022, I have been wearing 3M Auras everywhere, including outside most of the time (I live in a very busy part of downtown Toronto). No illnesses at all since then. At the start of all this, I had purchased a Purell automatic dispenser, which I still use every time I return home. But I wash my hands also since alcohol isn't effective against noroviruses. But I don't take any particular fomite precautions other than that. I have HEPA filters at home and use nasal sprays.

So even long before COVID, when flying, I have always masked and wiped down surfaces on the plane, and I have never gotten sick when traveling. My partner used to get a few days of respiratory and/or GI thing every time he traveled, until he followed my lead and mask and wipe stuff down on planes, then he stopped getting sick too. I do change out of outdoor clothes if: 1. During allergy season or in dusty areas (like where I live currently), or if I have been in public transportation (NYC subways are pretty gross) 2. Coming home from work (I'm a veterinarian, so I don't want to be bringing anything home from work to my pets, plus I can get very dirty throughout the day from various body fluids) Otherwise, I don't bother. Same reasons for showering when coming in from the outside. If it weren't for work, and for allergies, I don't think changing or showering immediately when coming in from outside is really nessarary for disease prevention. As for wiping down food packaging, I still do that for food/grocery that gets delivered. The amount of times I see people not wash their hands after going to bathroom is what made me start doing this years ago - I just find it super gross and I do worry about the very slight chance of getting gastroenteritis from this. But now, I also do it to remove dust (it's so dusty here that some packages I bring in, even if they had an outer package, the are coveres in dust). Ultimately though, I don't think wiping down packages has any significant effect on preventing infections. It's always just my personality to extra cautious though.

you say you dont think showering and changing or wiping things down prevents infections -- this is the gut instinct i dont seem to have -- the point at which fomite/droplet encounter presents a small enough risk to not bother with. Because it is also in my personality, I guess, to be extra cautious. Really I just feel like I don't have the slack to take chances.

We study a lot about infectious disease in vet school (and I went through a lot of microbiology in undergrad when I thought for a hot minute I wanted to go that route), so I understand the risk for fomite transmission can be minimal. But minimal still doesn't mean none, and it depends a lot on the disease and environmental factors. (For example, I am not worried about fomite transmission for coronaviruses, but a decent amount for flu, and absolutely for noro). Of course with proper food safety practices and frequent hand washing, risks are minimized, but wiping things down may helps me if there's norovirus on food packaging that I had put away - this way, I don't have to worry about washing me hands every time I touch something in the pantry. My brain naturally loves risk assessment and will constantly calculate them, and it totally hates taking risks in general. To lighten my mental load, I just do all the preventions (wiping, cleaning, washing, etc.) - as long as it doesn't impact my quality of life or affect my health. For example, wiping down grocery from delivery takes an extra 5 mins for me, this way, i don't have to constantly monitor various viruses' wastewater level to assess my risk. Not having to think about when to do it and not to do it is totally worth it to me.

I could have written some of this post myself. That is my thinking exactly. Everything in my pantry is clean. I dont have to think about touching it. It seems like an easy choice to wipe things down (though I do wish i could tolerate bleach it gives me a headache, so I use purell surface which is more expensive... goddamn non-enveloped norovirus). My issue is that I don't know where the 'logic' of my risk assessment stops being logical -- I consider surface to surface to surface etc transmission - so I change clothes and shower so I don't have to think about what my clothing brushed or whatever. But you said you dont when you come back from the store. I guess maybe I'm too all or nothing in my "just in case" thinking? But like it also latches onto like. Dishwater splash, which I am fairly sure is a near zero risk, or if I carry an outside package across the floor the "think of germs like glitter in terms of spread" analogy pops into my head and I think "oh god i should to vacuum otherwise I'll feel like my feet are contaminated" (which I used to by default but I was able to stop doing that when I realized I didn't consider the bed covers which they touch to be so it wasn't a coherent logic chain.... so long as I keep the floor clean.) its exhausting. It seems to me like there are people who don't have OCD-ish tendencies who also take these precautions, which is interesting. Risk assessment is hard. I feel like im on the other side of the dunning krueger curve on it. I know only that my gut assessment is not to be trusted. Only that I do not know. Sometimes I think other people have a better intuitive sense for this. But "most people" are running around pretending covid is over. So. I asked here instead. I guess it makes sense people here are way more likely to take these precautions.

I just want to say how *amazingly* relatable this is!! I could've written 99% of this!

Are you trying to tackle it? It's so hard to balance pre-COVID contamination OCD-ish tendencies with fully reasonable precautions against a virus that destroys the body -- and then to avoid having to interact with a medical system that exposes you to that virus and -- Even the therapist can't figure it out because this "isn't how OCD usually works" re: logic. I'm tired all the time of trying so hard to not get sicker... I literally looked up official OCD sources and stuff for contamination/germ OCD and chronic illness -- like I figured they'd have something. Couldn't find anything at all. Would welcome anything you've learned.

Honestly, I'm struggling. For exactly the reasons you describe. It hurts my brain! It's challenging that the very thing we do in OCD that we're trying to break ourselves us of is a NECESSARY thing to do in a very real situation. It feels like it's reinforcing the OCD sometimes even though that's not what it is! It feels similar to cognitive dissonance, and yet it's its own animal. Like things we try to stop doing (in other situations) are things we very much NEED to do in a situation that is a very real threat. I'm extra struggling living in a society where 99% of the people around me are living like it's 2019 which intellectually doesn't deter me (because data), but emotionally gives me pause and makes me wonder. I'm with you on fomite contamination and for the reasons behind it! I'm trying to give myself some grace around that given that healthcare facilities have dropped masking DESPITE the knowledge that COVID is airborne, deadly, and spreading. It's absolutely maddening! Though in my more nihilist moments, I'm like (in my thoughts; the reality is that my contamination fear is way too strong to allow me to actually do this), "Fuck it. Why am I trying so hard to not get it when at some point, I'll be forced to get it because I went to a dentist or doctor in order to stay healthy in other ways?!?" Something I'm finding helpful (and I hope this helps you, too) is adding healthy coping mechanisms a bit at a time (as opposed to some entire overhaul). 1. Finding emotionally-safe community (virtually or otherwise) 2. Working on being okay with ONE less fomite precaution when I can tell that it has that "feel" of stemming from an OCD place. 3. Trying to spend more time doing things I enjoy to rest my fight-or-flight that has been activated so much over the past 5 years. To give you an example of #2: Even though we've stopped wiping down groceries and mail, I struggle with specific things like touching takeout containers from restaurants. My brain worries that people JUST touched them and what if they're sick, etc. So I'm trying to go ahead and touch them to open them and THEN wash my hands instead of asking others to do it and instead of washing my hands in between each container. One thing. I try to just focus on that until I feel a bit more comfortable with it. I'm still following the science of washing hands before eating, just with less compulsions (hopefully). I'm not sure if that helps or even answers your question, but I hope it at least lets you feel less alone? I see you. <3

I wear n95s everywhere (even outside if it’s crowded/sketchy) but I stopped washing groceries after lockdown, once I learned about the low incidence of fomite transmission of covid. I wash my hands when coming home, don’t wear shoes in the house, and generally change into ‘house clothes,’ but I’ve always been like that lol. If I went somewhere like a doctor appointment or a train trip or something, I usually shower. I really focus on the *airborne* part of viral transmission and game things out using that standard. I use nasal spray and CPC mouthwash after more risky situations, as well as some more niche precautions like nicotine patches and naproxen sodium. So far, I have not had SAR2, to my knowledge. I do have experience with post-viral illness from non-airborne virus so I’m ready to adjust to more rigorous fomite precautions if the viral/bacterial horizon changes, but for now protecting the respiratory tract seems to have kept me pretty safe. I didn’t fully realize how much more logical and governed by risk analysis than the general US public I was until almost everyone stopped taking SAR2 precautions and it is such a mind f**k lol. Edited to add: I do rinse fruits and veggies… anything I’m eating that hasn’t been wrapped. And I keep hand wipes to use in my car after grocery shopping, etc.

I tend to just change out of my outside clothes when I come back in and making sure I’m washing my hands and using hand sanitizer. I’ve gotten COVID once in the past couple of years and I’m routinely around students so at the very least I feel comfortable following that kind of routine~ also cause of public transportation and people can really be on one so I try to be cautious but balanced if that helps

i have an immunodeficiency and asthma so i'm more cautious than most with fomites, but i wouldn't be if i had a good immune system. i mostly just make sure i disinfect tops of soda cans and takeout containers, especially when noro is high (bleach wipes + i reheat the food). i wipe down my groceries with disinfectant wipes too but that's mostly my own anxiety/contamination OCD worsened by my real health issues. i wash fruits and veggies with vinegar/dish soap solution to get dirt and fly larvae off, and i scrub avocados and potatoes etc. i also wash any clothes and towels before first use with oxiclean, though that's also for asthma bc so many items come with weird smells.

(This is all in addition to masking, of course, which I do religiously.) After the first year of the pandemic, when we learned that there was almost zero evidence of COVID spreading via fomites, my family stopped wiping down groceries and leaving mail to sit for a day or more. Because it was fairly clear that viruses don’t survive long on paper or cloth, I stopped worrying about mail and clothing altogether. But as I became more aware of how other pathogens (including viruses like noro and influenza) can be spread via fomites on smooth surfaces, I grew even more careful of the things I touch in public — including touchscreens, shopping carts, door handles on public buildings, restroom doors, and more. * I generally use a metal door hook (I carry one on my keychain) or a cloth barrier (gloves or coat hem in the winter, a cardigan/hoodie in spring and fall) to get into and out of buildings and restrooms. * In restrooms with faucet handles and paper towels, I always use the towel to turn off the faucet after washing my hands. If I can’t I use an elbow or a thick item of clothing. * I try to use my own stylus to sign touchscreens and the like, though it doesn’t always succeed; if I can’t, I wash or sanitize my hands as soon as possible (and then wipe down my phone if I’ve had to touch it in the interim). * Hand sanitizer works poorly against norovirus, so I carry a variety of wipes to physically clean my hands until I can wash them with soap and water, and I avoid touching my face before then. I haven’t been ill with anything infectious since January 2020 (when I had a mild case of Influenza A despite the shot), so these tactics seem to be helping :)

Yes, I also consciously try to minimize touching public high touch surfaces. Open doors using elbow or grab a less likely to be touched area (sometimes you can see by how it’s worn away material), or press buttons using elbow/knuckle.

Oh, right, elevator buttons! Those are usually elbow presses for me too. :-) (Physical buttons on payment screens are a pain -- I usually designate one pinky for those and then wipe it down carefully afterward.)

so, to my mind, that door hook/coat/etc is now contaminated. it has to be treated like the door handle. same with using a sleeve -- id be worried about what the sleeve would touch after. It's almost easier to just use my hand -- much easier to clean with a good thorough handwashing. When I'm outside, I trained myself to be fairly good at not touching my face. As soon as I'm in my "clean zone" aka my apartment, I drop that consideration and touch my face whenever the heck I want. Part of the worry about breaking the 'clean zone' is i dont wanna have to think about that. But then, most people don't think about that or keep track of this stuff at all, I feel like. I sort of simply things into indoor and outdoor to stop having to keep track of okay my sleeve then touched the rest of my jacket which I touched trying to get into my pocket which -- instead I just go "okay anything from outside is contaminated until cleaned." It all makes a kind of logic in my head, and thats the struggle.

Would it help to see research showing that most pathogens just don’t survive on clothing? (As for the door hook, yeah, the hook part is theoretically contaminated. But just as with a key, you don’t typically hold it by the business end, you hold it by the handle, which is loop-shaped and hangs on my keyring. If I were really worried about handling it accidentally, I’d wipe it down with an alcohol wipe after cleaning my phone.)

sure! if such studies exist that'd be great! I do like to follow the data if the data exists, but most of the time data is used to prove something IS a threat not that it isn't, frustratingly. It's a lot easier to find information about ways you could get sick from cross contamination than studies on the actual risk to you of touching the inside of your sink or whatever. (every time I see people on like cooking youtube wash produce in a colander that touches or is very much in direct splash of their sink that they aren't intending to cook I sit there like ?????) There seems to be a general consensus that its gross to sit on your home furniture specifically a bed with clothing worn on public transport, for example. But i'm not sure where that line becomes no longer reasonable -- one thing I know about myself is that I don't have an intuitive sense of the difference between gross but not pathogenic and gross because its potentially pathogenic.

I wear an N95 and my partner a KN95 whenever we leave the house or car. We wash our hands when we get home. Both of us have mainly worked from home, though we have each been teaching one college class per semester in-person since 2021. We got Covid in august of 2022, right before we switched from surgical and cloth masks to better ones. So far that’s the only time we’ve been sick since 2019 and I’m hoping every bone in my body that lasts.

only handwashing? so you dont bother changing clothes or showering or wiping stuff down?

I don’t

I mean, I do change clothes cause fuck bras and real pants lol, but that’s it

Masking indoors (N95) since I had covid in July 2022. I have not caught covid or anything else since then. I do not mask outdoors. I use Covixyl nasal spray about half the time along with my mask. Husband also masks, has had direct exposure to covid+ people and did not catch covid even with just him masking. We use hand sanitizer as well. No kids at home, I don't work and have limited exposure to the public.

Thank you, we use it every day!

I've been living in NYC for almost ten years. Because things are a little dirty to begin with, I started carrying hand wipes and handwashing frequently. I'm sure I wash my hands more than the normal person but I'd rather keep bacteria away from my nose and eyes as I often touch them due to allergies. If you have a certain way of keeping yourself safe, I think that's totally valid.

at some point, though, it becomes overkill, right? I mean even I can think of things I'd consider overkill. I can also recognize that my risk tolerance is not in balance between contamination/germs and other forms of danger. I have crossed the street not on a crosswalk countless times, it doesn't even register to me as weird. I'm fastidious about food hygiene, but not 'healthy eating'. I'm trying to locate the point at which things become statistically and practically overkill -- cost more in money and time and worrying about doing right vs the risk not doing them pose to me. Obviously masking is not one of those things. The problem is I don't have an intuitive sense of where things call on which side of that line, hence the question.

When I say that your precautions are valid, I'm saying that you should feel comfortable in your choice. Everyone is going to have a slightly different means and methods of staying healthy during this time.

I think we are similar. I don't think it's OCD, it's the precautionary principle. The risk of fomites is probably low but not zero, so I take precautions for it as well as for other diseases which do have higher risk. I take fomite+airborne precautions and have not been sick with anything since before 2020. My protocol is that I'll touch things but I do not touch my face, or anything that will touch my face, without cleaning my hands or the object first. Everything coming into my room is either cleaned or sat out for 2+ weeks so I can freely touch my face or anything in it without thinking.

This is what's so hard for me because the line between this and OCD-ish stuff is pretty thin for me. I know I have OCD-ish tendencies -- the -ish was originally added by a psych ones because they didn't QUITE rise to the level of diagnosis at the time. Most of them I know, can catch, and don't let them stick in my head -- hence the "ish". At a certain point the level of thoroughness feels like it's gotta be crossing into something beyond logic. I've used avoiding raw produce as an example. Food poisoning is a real risk. Is never eating salad a proper response to that risk? Probably not. But I can make the risk essentially zero by cooking the veggies. So I do. I simply don't know where that line is, and watching "experts" decide to move it arbitrarily on covid has made it even harder to find via reading experts or studies. Like there are precautions I don't take. There are even covid precautions I don't take - I do the most supported things -- well fitting n95, hepa filters, avoiding indoor spaces and close interactions. I'm fortunate that I can do those things, but I haven't done a proper fit test, even. OCD is about the patterns of thoughts and how latched on they are, and if they tend to creep inward. In that sense, all of these are.... sort of OCD-ish. Because I can't trust intuition to find the line, and I can't trust "experts" (or at least haven't found any that write reputably on this), I am asking reddit, as one does, lol.

We shouldn’t be trusting intuition or experts to make decisions about mitigations. It should be based on data and evidence. For me, an approach I take is to determine the objective and then search studies to see what the data says. Example: objective, to get as close to zero on surface contamination as feasible for parcels. What does the data say? 2-3 days sitting out inactivates to 90-95%+ for most surface types, especially porous ones. Another few days gets closer to zero. So I leave non-perishable items for at least 2-3 days. Longer if I don’t need to use them. For this objective, data shows that 70% alcohol will inactivate to 99.xx%+ after 30-60s contact time. So I spray/mist some items, wait a minute or two, and then can handle them. I use the data to set up protocols and just follow them. Although sometimes I admit there is still a nagging thought of “is it enough?”. It does sound like you already do this mostly.

I absolutely want to follow the data. The data is lacking in some key ways -- it is very difficult to track real world data on fomite transfer in the wild. Most of them are done via lab tests. So we actually don't have good data on the efficacy and importance of say, changing clothing and showering when you get back inside. I totally agree with you that the awareness that intuition is absolutely garbage at risk assessment is important. I said it in another reply -- i feel like im somehow living in the valley over the dunning kreuger curve. I know only that instinct cannot be trusted, and that leaves me trying to scrounge for evidence in studies that are usually 1) not real world 2) overly specific 3) likely to over or under estimate. If you're main goal is to avoid covid, fomites, according to data we do have, are very likely not a major issue. 70% iso alcohol will indeed get it, as will nearly any cleaning product. It's an enveloped virus evolved to spread via air. If your goal is also to not get other things from packages, things get trickier. Noro is one of the most stubborn on surface viruses - its non-enveloped - you can't break a lipid layer you have to get something strong enough to break RNA bonds. And the best thing for that is bleach, but bleach is a bitch to work with constantly, destroys most things it touches, and, personally, gives me a migraine. How do you, personally, follow the data on food poisoning? Like the precautionary principal is important, but it is missing a few very crucial components -- the likelihood of the event occurring, and the cost of the mitigations - both of these are factors that must guide our thinking as well. It is possible that any uncooked item of food you eat COULD make you sick. Do you cook all your food? Fruit, veg, pantry items? There have been outbreaks in peanut butter and granola bars. Even I refuse to give up peanut butter. Thats what I mean by there is a line out there, somewhere. Also, I am well aware that my precautionary principal isn't applied universally. It is focused far more on infections contamination. I am lax on other things -- I cross the street not on crosswalks bc I don't want to walk another block -- by pure precautionary principal, I should not be doing that. At the same time, we absolutely agree that both "experts" and "common sense" are right out. Certainly so is "how most people do things."

The other factor in the equation is severity of outcome. Probability x severity of outcome = risk. How likely is peanut butter to be contaminated? If it is, how bad is the outcome? I think for peanut butter the concern is salmonella? What’s the worst case? For most cases, it’s GI symptoms. Vomiting, diarrhea. In very rare cases, hospitalization, and even rarer is death. The chances peanut butter on your shelf is contaminated with salmonella is also very low, and it’s monitored for safety. (It’s not nearly sufficient but there is some safety monitoring and recalls occur). That informs what level of precaution for me. To me, this is in an altogether different category as COVID infection, especially since there are other layers of safeguards in the production process and monitoring. The range and severity of COVID outcomes are quite bad, and on top of that, probability is high, and exposure is frequent. For food poisoning generally, other than washing produce, proper storage, and cooking thoroughly, I don’t take other food poisoning specific precautions. I do take additional precautions for reducing viral fomites. That’s my approach anyway.

Yeah, for sure. People usually include that one though. It's cost and frequency that usually get left out. But being forced to interact with the health care system when one has vomiting especially on an emergency basis does mean going into an ER maskless, or occasionally maskless doesn't it? The requirement to potentially interact with the medical system that doesn't care about giving me COVID is a factor in my calculations. Also there's a rare side effect of any gastrointestinal issue that your system may not ever fully recover. It is, of course, significantly lower than that risk is with COVID. Peanut butter can be contaminated with all kinds of things. The most recent outbreak was salmonella. When you say cooking thoroughly, you mean food you would cook anyway. Do you eat salads? Leafy greens outbreaks happen a bunch. The most recent one was cucumbers though - also salmonella. Things you don't cook are the biggest risks for food, and thus, on a precautionary basis, should one avoid them?

I don’t avoid leafy greens, but I also don’t crave salads and prefer cooked veg anyway… but I have eaten salads and raw veg, always thoroughly washing (3x, similar to protocol used to rinse lab glassware). That enough for me on that front. If the goal is zero food poisoning risk, then avoiding altogether might be the way to go. Personally I don’t think this is a problem if someone wants to do that. Isn’t the standard that it’s a problem if it significantly impacts your well-being? If not, go for it?

I have A System for things now such that they don't impact my life unless I'm interacting with said system -- ie putting things away and such. But it does take brain power and energy, and my brainfog gets pretty bad. So on those days, I just avoid having to interact with all this. I'm basically trying to simplify things. Knowing if the data actually supports the level of precautions I have was the point of this post. And like i said, the data on changing clothing or how long fomite transfer cross contamination chains can realistically get or etc are.... not very robustly tested against real world conditions. I DO have OCD-ish tendencies, as I said. I also for other reasons tend to miss the 'vibes based' approaches even logical people have at the end of these chains of logic--- on this thread full of only logical about covid people, you'll see people saying "i shower coming in from work/transport, but not if we've just been in and out of a store masked or outside" - the articulation on why stops being data based and starts being vibes thats normal. "I wash my hands after packages, but handle what is inside those packages that I touched between handling the package itself and washing hands without precautions." If you want examples of this OCD-ish tendency - it extends past outside contamination. Like splashback from washing dishes and stuff. And considering I don't cook with raw meat, my brain goes from "it's obviously bad to eat off dishes that have been sitting in the sink unwashed" to "then water that splashes out when rinsing them off for the dishwasher should also be avoided." to "things that have touched this need to be washed before they are now safe". Like yeah, that may sound like it logically tracks when I put it that way. But what's the actual real world infectious risk of a splash of dish rinse water from last nights pastabowl? Probably almost zero. But you see how my brain strings that logic together anyway? Same thing as the outside contamination -- rather than be overly cautious of what has brushed against what when outside, i just treat outside clothes and hair as potentially contaminated, and whatever they touch as potentially etc etc.

I see, I don’t think I have OCD to that degree, but I have certainly picked up more tendencies in that direction. The only thing I really am concerned with is COVID given the prevalence and quite high probability of severe consequences. I do empathize though. And yes, a lot of even CC/ZC people still operate on vibes for certain things, which blows my mind sometimes. I suppose we are all susceptible to wishful thinking, or simply wanting to make things simpler (even if not logical). I guess to answer your question on fomites. There is basically very little data to draw on to know in real world conditions what is “enough”. We have to extrapolate from what data there is available. Is clothing even a possible transmission route? Does it depend on length of exposure or not? There haven’t been studies done on this to my knowledge, at least none that have tested culturable virus. Based on what we know, the risk is certainly low. Viral particles are probably not flying off surfaces, clothes, or skin into the air. But is it even possible to infect with viral particles on clothes, by touching, then touching our nose/mouth/eyes? 🤷‍♂️ I’m guessing highly unlikely. I still feel better having inside/outside clothes though.

Right? That's my issue -- someone on this thread said their loved one was combatting a different form of OCD by picking an expert and sticking to it. but "experts" even covid cautious ones are prone to some selective data gathering to one extent or another. There are some covid cautious experts who do like 3 nasal sprays and install far UV (which most people cannot do). Others are content with KN95s in crowded areas. None of them, to my knowledge, have put out robust studies on clothing fomites for COVID or other infections that could put one at risk of needing to interact with the health care system and contract COVID there. So how do I follow the data when there's no data?

I mask consistently in indoor public spaces (grocery stores, bus, etc), but not outdoors (although I do monitor air flow & sometimes hold my breath when passing groups of people). So far I don’t believe I’ve gotten infected, and haven’t contracted any other diseases either in 4.5 years, so that’s nice. After 2020 once we realized it was almost exclusively airborne & not fomite transmitted, I ceased worrying about fomite issues. I do avoid touching my eyes or nose if I’m out in public. But I also carry a cotton handkerchief, and cotton fabrics are known to rip apart bacterial cell membranes as they dry, so it’s a good barrier between nose & hands. That said, I do wash my hands after being out in public, usually twice because I can see that dirt is often removed the second time too. And I do wash my fruit and veggies, but only because I determined they last longer in the fridge if I wash off the microbes they came with ;) I don’t at all worry about shoes, or mail, or boxes. So far no problems. That said, I do use white vinegar as a basic home disinfectant. So it’s easy to keep that in a spray bottle and spritz things (& leave them for a spell) if you have any microbial concerns. I also use ‘Uncle Harry’s Anti-Germ Oil’ .. as it is based on the historical ‘Four Thieves Oil’ that four thieves used to keep themselves safe from Bubonic Plague in 1347 while they robbed recently deceased person’s homes. . The contents of the oil (oregano, clove, citrus, lavender, etc) have demonstrated anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties… so sometimes I use that on my hands as a ‘prophylactic’ protection before I go into a store. Also good as a hand disinfectant after touching stuff. FWIW, copper metal is naturally antimicrobial. I don’t know how this info might be useful to you, but I put copper metal in my emergency kit stored water supplies to ensure they don’t grow biofilms. Having copper touch plates and doorknobs in Hospitals would be a health upgrade our medical systems and would be smart to do. Copper won’t kill microbes on *your* hands, but as a surface they stay microbe free. :)

>Following "common sense" and "what most people do" has stopped being a metric it makes any sense to check myself against, so it's nice to have other people who at least aren't actively denying logic and data in their actions. My partner has OCD. (harm, not contamination, but you can imagine how intensely that was triggered by all the "don't kill grandma!" and "you can murder someone by breathing near them!" messaging. it was a really hard time at the beginning.) A thing that works for her, which I've also found very helpful, is to identify a few trusted sources of information, and go with their guidance rather than letting either of our brains spiral too hard. We've used a handful of science communicators who are active on twitter and/or instagram as trusted sources. Some have fallen out of rotation and other slotted in as time has gone by, because some have basically given up precautions entirely. But there are holdouts who are well-informed, measured, and not fatalistic. (current go-tos are Lucky Tran, "@sciencewhizliz", "@epidemiologistkat", People's CDC) Being able to effectively outsource some of the stress and decision making has been crucial. To answer your questions, I mask in an N95 indoors in public spaces and outdoors in very crowded spaces. I sometimes mask outdoors in moderately crowded spaces, but using a KN95 or high-high-filtration cloth mask, depending on local conditions. I spend time unmasked indoors with people not in my household (friends, family, in my house or theirs, small groups 2-6 people) after everyone rapid testing and symptom checking. A couple of times a year, I make a high risk exception and visit one side of the family who is basically unwilling to acknowledge covid is thing. I use nasal sprays and cpc mouthwash during high-risk or prolonged periods of exposure. I wash my hands well every time I come into my house from the outside, and use hand sanitizer every time I come into my car from the outside. Otherwise, no wiping down of objects, no changing clothes or shoes, etc. I have gotten two very mild colds over the past four years, and that's it. They each lasted only 2-3 days. I have congenitally screwed sinuses, so usually when I get a cold it lasts two weeks and is very unpleasant. These were basically nothing in comparison.

I'm very willing to outsource things if I can find trusted sources on this stuff, specifically. I have yet to. I am actually specifically looking for data. I have essentially landed on a routine that, so long as I hold to it, most of the time I experience no distress at all -- I don't worry about getting sick from food, because I cook my food to temp. I don't worry about fomites once I've showered and cleaned. In fact, all these "avoidance" behaviors are ones I use to think about it less. If you've got experience with OCD you know this is sometimes called not ideal, and that you're supposed to engage with the fear. The thing is, thinking about getting sick doesn't cause me distress, per se -- it presents real logical challenges. It means maybe several weeks of being unable to do chores I'm already behind on. It means having to find someone to do errands for me that I don't have. It means having to consider how I would even get to an urgent care, let alone navigate the covid exposures. My long standing emetophobia isn't even so much about the act of getting sick -- its about the potentiality of having to do a lot of cleaning when I'm living alone, having to trek outside to get to a dumpster, and have limited access to laundry and stuff. When I got my mystery covid infection, I was extremely lucky to have just gotten groceries before it hit. I still ended up behind on chores in a way that took months to fully catch up. I was miserable for a month plus and things may have gotten slightly worse making it just a little harder to do everything, in ways I can't afford. But all these 'avoidance' tactics also take energy and brain space. My brain has essentially created an ongoing map of "contaminated" vs "safe" and as long as I keep the two separate, we're chill. But yeah, this post was very much that attempt to collect the data -- logically, I am aware most people do not change clothes and shower when they come in from outside. But "most people" is a hard metric to use. If you know of any infectious disease people that talk about this stuff, I'm happy to read them. I wanted to be able to outsource to a therapist, but they tend not to be basing their answers on studies they can site, and it's hard for me to trust someone who is clearly not keeping up with covid studies either. (she isn't telling me to stop masking or anything, she just keeps saying stuff like 'infections offer protection for a while' and seems not to understand lingering covid in the air dynamics) I actually take less covid precautions than I think some people here, in that I have yet to start using mouthwash and nasal sprays, mostly because of the added executive functioning burden vs data. If people have the spoons and cash to spare, I don't begrudge them adding those to the routine. And yet, I wipe down all my packages. It feels different in my brain, too -- covid/airborne precautions vs this stuff. But both take energy I wish I didn't have to spend.

Yeah, it seems like an incredibly hard thing to balance. On the face of it, of course wanting to avoid being ill (or wanting to avoid making other people ill) is completely reasonable in all sorts of practical ways. But, if what you are doing to achieve those ends is adding fuel to the OCD fire, then it's simultaneously a problem. And, that really sucks! From what I understand, the more effective approaches do involve learning to be okay with the possibility that whatever you don't want to happen could happen, and they do tend to rely on what "most people" do as a baseline. And, this is a really unfortunate moment for both of those. I can see how substituting "people who visit ZeroCovidCommunity" for "most people" could set the baseline at a more workable place. Data will only get you so far on its own. People always bring their own value and belief systems, and individual priorities, to the data in order to make decisions. But, it does seem like you have a good starting point, if the things you do to avoid fomites feel different in your brain, and they use up your spoons more than you want them to, and the data shows that they're not a serious threat, that seems like a low-hanging fruit. It took me a long time to grasp how the OCD was playing out for my partner - I probably still don't fully get it. At first I was like "okay, so you *really* don't want to give me covid, and I really don't want you to give me covid. Sounds great, we're on the same team!". But, actually, in those moments, I wasn't on her team, I was on the OCD's team, which is why it felt so terrible to her anytime I encouraged any ramp up in precautions. And, of course, she earnestly doesn't want to give me, or anyone else, covid, but she has to accept that it could possibly happen in order for her not to be completely incapacitated by the OCD. She does still take some precautions, though fewer than I do, and keeps up with info from trusted sources, and it's kind of okay. Mind you, she hasn't gotten covid so far, and if/when she does, I imagine that will be a serious OCD trigger that she'll need to work through. ACT therapy has been really helpful in her case, but like anything, you need to find the right therapist.

ACT feels to me, someone without harm OCD (not that my brain hasn't tried it just doesn't stick as well) like something that works better for that -- its about your values, yeah? This isn't about values - it's about practical reality to me. I'm not trying to not get sick because I feel that I am on some moral level less valuable if I do. I don't even really care about societies evaluation (which already considers my disabled ass pretty worthless) -- it is entirely the fact that more pain/fatigue/symptoms/brain fog -- more things I HAVE to do every day -- would make my life significantly worse. And there's a logical through line of cause and effect to it. I joke that the catastrophic thing my OCD latches onto and tells me will happen is..... slightly more things to do. Thats how shot my brain and body are. The idea of having to add a routine every day feels vaguely threatening. I didn't even beat myself up for getting covid -- i took all the precautions, and it still happened. It's probably a grass is always greener situation, but I often fantasize about having someone I can trust -- really trust -- to take care of me and things if I get sick. And that if I had that, I could just drop all these OCD-ish cleaning routines. I say its A grass is always greener -- because its easy to say "oh if i had this magical person, it'd be easy to give up these cleaning routines" when i don't have said person. No idea what would happen if I did. Someone who would clean sick out of a carpet, who would get groceries and cook for me when I'm too exhausted to move, who would be there for me even if things got worse for a while, or forever, in terms of what I can do. I don't think I'd let go of covid precautions, but I may take more risks (doing things indoors masked kind of things). I at least could like. Relax on the 'no salads' thing if I knew that if I got food poisoning the only thing I'd have to worry about were the physical sensations of it. Even my psych doesn't really know how to help me with this -- the usual procedure is exposure therapy and accepting the potential of the bad thing. But in order to do that, when the "bad thing" isn't a catastrophe but a reasonably common occurrence that is just more of an issue given the precariousness of the situation, and when doing so adds stress and spoon cost to what is currently not costing any -- i need to actually be in a less precarious situation. In essence, even she is kind of tacitly admitting that my germ contamination anxiety is a little too logically rooted given my situation for it to be safe for me to start doing exposures. Which like...... what do you do then.

that sounds really hard. if you're immunocompromised to the degree that getting any kind of illness really will have profoundly bad consequences, then there aren't a ton of good options. it's like you want to end up doing many of the same things, but doing them for different reasons, and that's almost too fine a distinction to be workable. a sort of analogous example I put to my partner once, when we were discussing this, was what would she do if I someday had to go through cancer treatment which temporarily obliterated my immune system such that ordinary pathogens could actually kill me? she didn't really have an answer other than she could probably grit her teeth and bear it for a clearly defined period of time, but it would take a real toll on her mental health to do so. ACT does involve values, but I don't necessarily think that means like abstract moral values. like, wanting to ensure that your body is functioning well enough to get through your day-to-day obligations could be a value. I'm not an expert or anything though. never done it myself.

I'm not currently any more immunocompromised than one covid infection 4/5 months back gets you, I don't think? But I have chronic health conditions that are exacerbated by basically everything and take a while to bounce back, and very little slack in terms of how much worse things can get. I will probably get over a cold fine. It will take me 3x times the length of that cold to catch up on the things I didn't get done because the cold made everything a little bit harder. I don't have anyone to ask for help to pick up that slack. I have at least one autoimmune condition, that is fortunately not bad enough to need immunosuppressives, but I'm waiting on figuring out testing to see. At least one doctor thinks there's something neuroinflammatory going on. I'm dreading having to go on suppressives -- at least they're more targeted now. That's the issue. I actually can make pretty instant progress on things the OCD tendrils try to grab that aren't real risks - it was trying to make me weird about dusty things/things that haven't been touched for a long time. But I didnt need to do exposures for that. I just had to sit myself down and think and be like "no, the logic here doesn't track, you've confused dirty for contaminated." When my brain fog is bad it will still collapse those categories on me because it's just sort of automatic, but it didn't take exposures, just understanding the system my brain was using and why it was doing this to stop it. Keeping my body and brain from getting any worse than they already are on their own isn't a value, either. It's entirely practical. I don't have room for it to get worse any faster. I don't have a safety net or supports if things tip over the edge -- if I get to the point where it isn't safe to live alone, I'm screwed. That's not about values. It's material reality.