Despite the lockdown, despite being forced to work from home, despite finding everything around us closed, we have to venture out to stock up foods and other essential items. Grocery shopping can’t wait.
Shopping for essentials may be the single most urgent task which forces us to leave our homes and enhance the risk of possible contacts with the infected.
Unlike western countries, direct-to-door delivery in India is well developed in India. Last mile distribution is beyond reach for most of the people, living even in a big city like Delhi.
But what’s the safest way to shop during this pandemic? And what should you do once you’ve brought your haul home?
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), close contact may be under 6 feet of distance from the infected person with more than 10 mins of exposure.
A new model developed to study the behaviour of aerosols in a “grocery store-like” environment by four Finnish research organisations shows that these small airborne particles emitted during coughing, sneezing and talking are transported in the air and can stay and spread in this environment for several minutes.
The experiment takes into account the centralized ventilation measures in such a store, which doesn’t completely stop the spread of the aerosols from one corner to another.
Another study was published in the Journal of American Medical Association by Lydia Bourouiba at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The study emphaised on the role of “multiphase turbulent gas (a puff) cloud that entrains ambient air and traps and carries within it clusters of droplets” when a person coughs and sneezes. The paper concludes that “given various combinations of an individual patient’s physiology and environmental conditions, such as humidity and temperature, the gas cloud can travel 23 to 27 feet (7-8 m)”.
When it comes to food and the coronavirus, the biggest threat is person-to-person contact in grocery stores. If you can, use contactless delivery and tip generously; if you need to go to a physical store, wear a mask and stay six feet away from other shoppers. Always make sure to wash your hands after returning from the store or unpacking your delivered goods. And remember: The impact of not being a jerk to the people in the long chain of how your food ends up in your kitchen is much more significant than the potential threat of you getting the coronavirus from a box of cereal.
