I fucked up, you guys. I thought my rubbing alcohol was 70%. It is not, it’s 99 percent. Which apparently is ineffective, it needs the extra water? I feel like I’ve just killed Boyfriend now.
Plus, I’m almost out of it and there’s no more to be had anywhere. Which I would not be if I wasn’t such a dumbass and had diluted it!
Can I recommend a deep breath? We cannot change the past.
What are you using the rubbing alcohol for specifically? Can it be done with soap and water?
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That doesn’t make any sense to me.
I read that we’re supposed to wipe down all packaging, groceries (other than fresh produce), etc. with disinfectant before it comes into the house. As I understand it, soap and water isn’t enough to kill the virus if it is on packaging. So we’ve been doing that and apparently it was ineffective.
It’s the only thing we had in the house that is a disinfectant. We tried to buy some in early March and the shelves were completely empty and remain so. So we were also using it on a paper towel to kill the virus on doorknobs, light switches, my credit card that got handled by the guy at the bodega down the street, etc.
rabbitarian, I didn’t know it either, apparently it’s a chemistry thing. Like, how… I forget the details, but in chemistry class I remember being told that some acid was way stronger and worse for you when diluted. Apparently same thing with this. One would think stronger is better, but, no.
So stupid!!
I understand. But we all are just doing the best we can with what we have, yes? I have no wipes or disinfectant either at this point. You are not alone in this.
Another option for things like cardboard is to leave them in a “dead zone” for 24 hours as I believe it’s a 24 hour period for the virus to die on paper objects.
I personally have been accepting some risk with groceries and packaging. Because there’s not much else I can do at this point. I just wash my hands after I put things away.
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Yeah, I’m going to have to start leaving things in the basement, I guess, and hope our neighbor doesn’t take them. Can’t do that with perishables, though, it’s cold down there but not that cold. And some perishables come in plastic where it lives for multiple days.
This is just too much to keep track of while also trying to focus on my job for however long I have it and performing some basic self care.
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The way that alcohol kills bacteria and viruses is by disrupting their membranes. Surfactants (things that disrupt membranes) are very sensitive to concentration, because it’s basically dissolving the virus, so there has to be room in the solution for the virus to dissociate (the solution can’t be too concentrated). We use 70% in bio labs, but 60% is nicer for your skin so that’s what they use in hand sanitizers.
@TrisPrior, I just looked it up and up to 95% is still effective!
ETA: soap is one of the best surfactants out there, which is why they’re recommending washing your hands over using hand sanitizer. I don’t think washing cardboard will work, but you can definitely wash plastic and glass, which stuff lives on longer anyway.
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Do you have a plastic bin or anything that you can put somewhere inside the apartment and leave nonperishables there for a while to keep them safe from cats and neighbors?
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Yeah I know how it works, which is why diluting too much made sense, but it didn’t make sense why a higher concentration would suddenly fail to effective unless in the case alcohol it’s an evap/wet time issue because how fast alcohol evaporates.
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Not anything that has a lid that shuts, ie, not catproof.
I’ll leave it in the basement and hope for the best. Oh, that’s an idea, maybe I can take the bin and put it upside down over my food so she can’t see what is in there. I can put it by my garden dirt and pointy-ended tomato cages!
(I have no idea whether she’d actually take anything. But she is bitchy and insane. And lacks boundaries.)
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You could do the same thing with the bin in your apartment. Just because it is in your apartment does not mean it will spread. To my understanding if you wash your hands after handling the materials you will be okay, and even though traces of the virus live on surfaces (cardboard 24hrs, plastic 72hrs) that does not mean the virus is in a state that can cause infection.
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I also think that it’s important to remember that this pandemic is a global health crisis and an emergency, but for all of us, it isn’t a conscious being out to get us. It feels like that sometimes with the group anxiety and the worst case scenario, but in all honesty, none of us can individually keep ourselves safe. Our friends and neighbours in the most at risk populations need to isolate to a higher level to prevent getting the disease, if possible to make it until there is a treatment or vaccine, or at least to make sure infection hits when there is a ventilator available.
We’ve all made choices in December through March that we may not have made a few hours, days or weeks later. Living with the guilt of imperfection only robs you of quality of life.
While I dont wash my packages, I respect those that do. But please dont feel like you’ve injured yourself or others if you wash your packages imperfectly or not at all.
No one, including hospital staff, is equipped to manage this storm perfectly. And I hesitate to even suggest doing your best, when for so many of us, falling short can lead to crippling internal pain. We each need to follow government recommendations and public health best practices to the extent that we can given our resources. If someone lives in a country where not working will mean starvation, I can’t fault them for working. I hope that they don’t fault me for having my partner and parents over, because it keeps me and baby safe and healthy. We all face unique health and social challenges and we need to work together to fight this within our restrictions.
I want the world to be ready as soon as possible to welcome HaH and Smacky and my other at risk friends and strangers back out in public. I want us to handle this in rich countries so that we can send aid to other countries to help them fight it.
But I dont want my friends hurting because they cannot follow every suggestion online without hurting inside.
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Maybe this will help some with anxiety. (Or maybe it will make it worse, IDK, but it is worth a read.)
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We use 91% in pro-brewery environments. 70% may be more immediately effective, but 91% does a great job of inactivating everything in seconds. The chemistry is along the lines of “Not enough water and it doesn’t permeate the membrane, just scorches the outside of it” meaning the inside of some single cell organisms may still live for a bit. But it really wrecks them, and it doesn’t take long for them do be so damaged that putting them in a solution literally made to grow single sell organisms still doesn’t revive them.
You’ll be fine using 91%. It’s almost like the argument of pay down debt vs invest. They’re both good, one just works a little faster sometimes.
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Then it becomes a cat toy, but, point taken. 
And, oh yes, scrubbing down any time we handle anything. My knuckle skin is cracking. 
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Tris, I know you are dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety, but a gentle suggestion:
Can you use this time to try to adjust your thinking a bit about how much responsibility you take over your SO’s life? Yes, we all want to do whatever we can to protect those we love during this challenging time. But using a higher concentration of alcohol solution as a disinfectant is not the equivalent of dosing someone’s tea with arsenic. He needs to take his own precautions, too. And even if things go bad and one or both of you gets sick, it won’t be your fault. You are doing the best you can.
I know the programming runs deep and those voices are hard to ignore. But if we can learn not to amplify them it really does make life a bit easier.
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My county and a neighboring county will be under lockdown starting 8 am tomorrow through April 17. Outdoor exercise still permitted but follow social distancing, so I’ll still be riding my bike.
Also via email that a shelter volunteer has died of Covid-19. I did not know him and it’s been over two weeks since I volunteered since the shelter was very proactive in suspending volunteer service. Feeling sad and frustrated.
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@elle Is very wise.
Another thing to consider is that the physical and the mental are linked. It’s a fool’s errand to drive yourself crazy about things out of your control but then also not mitigate your own stress levels at all.
My typical rambling/proslytzing about gratitude, skip if it makes you angry/sad
Stress impacts physical healthy, hugely, and right now it is more in our control than the physical. Note: I said more not entirely, not 100%, not that it’s easy to control, not that everyone can control their emotions to the exact same extent, not that no one has issues that impact their emotions.
I’m not immunocompromised at all, but I have diminished lung capacity (it’s like I have 1.25-1.5 lungs) so I am in extra precaution mode, but I absolutely refuse to let this event destroy me emotionally or ruin the life I’m living right now, today! That would just give me another problem to deal with and it wouldn’t help anyone, it would make my life markedly harder and put me in a worse position to do work, support my family, and give back! Plus, despite being higher risk than some people I’m also wayyyy lower risk than many people, and I have so much more than most of the world. I’m still in one of the richest countries in the world! It’s easy to point out all the shortcoming of the US, and believe me I see them, but honestly I would rather be here than a lot of places on the planet. No, maybe we aren’t handling it the best, but are we more equipped than most countries? Yes. Just because of resources and power alone, we are.
I’m also in a household with the means to support ourselves today. There are so many hundreds of thousands of people putting themselves in real danger right now to work on a vaccine or stock groceries or care for patients or haul garbage or run city utilities. There are people living on the streets, who were already in financial peril, who have no resources at all, or who just lost their only income. My family is not among them, so I’m super super lucky in that regard too! Most of us here (myself definitely included) have lived through a time of almost unprecedented safety and security and prosperity, compared to other eras of human history. The expectation of 100% certainty about income, safety, etc. would have been downright laughable in nearly any other time, and in most other places in the world in the present day! Lack of certainty about future events is not a good reason to throw away our peace in the present. If it were, no one throughout any other era of life would have ever had any peace.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I truly believe cultivating gratitude during this time is absolutely vital. Gratitude is insanely powerful if you really truly feel it and experience it, not just if you say it or know you should feel it. It’s like a muscle, you have to keep practicing and reminding yourself and reframing things and looking at greater context than our own individual lives and experiences. Part of cultivating a positive mindset is also learning to STOP certain thoughts and become the master of your mind. When the little hamster wheel starts turning and turning and what-ifs and borrowing trouble start going STOP THAT SHIT right in its tracks! Negativity is like a horrible weed in a garden, if you pull up the first one at the root the second you see it you have a chance, but if you wait until your entire yard is filled with weeds to start it’s a huge fucking pain in the ass to stop it.
Anyway, that’s my two cents.
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Thank you
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I just want to jump in this thread even though I haven’t read it all! Hi everyone!
I’m concerned that there are too many loopholes in the stay-home order. I mean, maybe you do need to go to the hardware store to protect your home from damage, but almost certainly you don’t, y’know?
I have been wearing a homemade fabric mask out in public for several reasons. One, it might help keep me safe, who knows? Two, it might help keep the cashier at the grocery store safe if I am an asymptomatic carrier. And finally, cosmetically, I kind of want to scare people? I am not sure people are taking this seriously enough. (Not that my glitter bumblebee mask is scary, but you know what I mean.)
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