Why the grocery store is a more likely place to catch coronavirus Scott Greg Follow Mar 22 · 6 min read

With some COVID-19 grocery shopping safety tips

Don’t we wish the stores were this empty

If you are sheltering at home with your family, and not going into an office, then you are pretty much able to avoid other people all time. Except when your food runs out.

I was lucky to visit a grocery store on Thursday, March 12th at 3PM. It was the day before shopping got a little crazy. It was a Trader Joe’s, most frozen foods were sold out but they still had most of everything else. The store was not overly crowded. When I arrived at home, I informed the family we were starting “shelter at home”. No more school, going to work, or social interaction. Nine days later, we realized we would have to go to the store again. Little did we know what would be in store (pun intended)

Employees at multiple grocery stores including Costco, and Amazon are testing positive for COVID-19 — article from March 30th

I arrived at the store this fine Sunday morning at 8:15AM. Ralphs, in Los Angeles, was only letting 50 people in at a time. Out of 100 people in line, only 10% were wearing masks, and I was the only one with a N95 mask — which is the one proven to work. People seemed to give me more space in line because I was wearing a mask. After waiting 15 minutes, I was let in.

Watch this video to see why you should wear a mask

No time to be chatty

Because aisles are small, it is difficult to respect social distancing, and not everyone in the store even cares about it. So you are in close contact with a lot of people. Three employees checked me out, two of them handling my groceries and one chatting with the cashiers, expelling respiratory particles while only three feet away from me. In case you didn’t know, coronavirus can remain viable in air droplets. Published research here. Some stores are starting to recognize this risk, and are putting up plexiglass barriers.

Try not to linger

You see — grocery stores and supermarkets are low-humidity, low temperature indoor spaces. The kind of spaces where coronavirus can last and linger, even in the air.

The store was fairly well-stocked, but there was no toilet paper, hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, flour, rice or dry beans and 50–60% of frozen food was gone. There were no wipes or hand sanitizer made available to customers.

Employees were wiping cart handles for customers with a multi-purpose spray, which may not kill all COVID-19.

When I got back to the car, I took off my mask outside the car and placed it in a bag, sanitized my hands, got in the car and drove home. If you don’t have another mask — you want to wait a few days before you use the mask again so any virus becomes non-viable. Or carefully reheat it in an oven at 158F. Keep it in a cool, dry place.

Arriving Home

Groceries went in the trunk. After I got home, on our patio, I spent an hour wiping down the groceries with bleach before bringing them into the house. It may be overkill, but spending an hour every couple of weeks ensuring we don’t being coronavirus into the home seemed like a small price to pay. Bleach, ethanol (alcohol), peroxide and soap all kill the virus.

Alternatively, you can keep the groceries in a separate area for day or two. The virus becomes non-viable over time, so every day it sits the chance that there is enough viable virus to cause infection drops considerably.

Taking a Risk

With over a thousand people shopping in the store each day, all coming in close contact with each other and the store employees, I can only imagine there is some coronavirus transmission going on. We felt secure in our protocols, but I can’t say the same for the other shoppers. Remember that people without symptoms are responsible for much of the coronavirus spread. In case you think you aren’t taking a big risk, read this story about about one person infecting more than half the people at a party attended by 50 people in Connecticut.

Angela Merkel’s doctor tested positive for coronavirus on March 22nd, soon after she posted a photo of herself shopping without a mask, being a good German citizen by purchasing only 1 toilet paper. One has to wonder whether she received, or transmitted the virus during that visit.

I don’t blame the public for not wearing masks while shopping. We need to ask the government, why masks are not available. It’s possible stocks were depleted 10 years ago in the USA. Were they not aware we would be in this situation? If you have masks in your country, you are lucky.

COVID-19 Shopping Safety Tips

#1 Wear a mask (most important; get one or make one yourself) — sources, make your own, make your own video tutorial

#2 Don’t touch your face, and have alcohol-based hand sanitizer waiting in your car (also extremely important)

#3 Sanitize your phone, keys, credit card and anything else you may have touched up to that point

#4 If you are a high-risk individual, you may want to disinfect all groceries and materials before bringing them into your home. We used clorox cleaner + bleach spray.

#5 Coronavirus can stick to clothes, so remove them when you get home and don’t mix them with new clothes. Then take a shower. Remove shoes and boots outside.

#6 Wearing gloves is not necessary, based on my research, as long as you wash or sanitize your hands

#7 Fresh produce — this is a tricky one. There’s a tiny chance someone coughed on your raspberries. To reduce risk, you can let them sit for a day or two outside, or wash them with soapy water and then fresh water. I did a combination of both.

#8 Protect your eyes. COVID-19 can infect you through your eyes. This is probably only an issue with very close contact with someone, but why take chances. For absolute protection you’d need some type of goggles (swim goggles will do), but I simply wore glasses.

#9 “Designated shopper” — designate one family member as the “shopper”, so they can get accustomed to the protocol. That will make them less likely to make a mistake, touch their face, etc. Go over the protocol with the entire household ahead of time so it is second nature.

#10 Misc tips — Get to the store early. Make trips as quick as possible. Avoid crowded aisles. Avoid cash if possible. Use self-check out if possible. Reduce frequency of trips to one a week at most, ideally once every 2 weeks

What about getting it delivered?

Yes, you can use a food delivery service and avoid many of these risks. But in many markets, you are looking at a delay of up to a week or more. The cost is higher. And the delivery person themselves is probably taking risks every time they shop for someone, so tips #4 and #7 apply even more so after you receive your groceries.

Final thoughts on COVID-19 transmission & assumptions, and risks

A couple of readers have pointed out that the main way coronavirus is transmitted is through close, prolonged contact with someone else — like a family member. This is correct, and the article assumes that no one is your household is currently affected, and that all members of the household are sheltering at home unless needing to go out for essentials, or taking walks while maintaining proper social distancing.

“Almost certainly transmitted by air” — 2 dead, 45 infected in Washington. Full story, also here

Other areas of debate is the effectiveness of masks and the dangers of not sanitizing everything. I am believer that it is difficult to bring your risk of contracting the virus all the way down to absolute zero, but we can minimize the risk. As an example, this study shows that homemade masks can filter some .02 micron particles, which is surely better than nothing — just don’t get a false sense of security.

Stay safe out there. This article from a respiratory therapist shows how horrible COVID-19 really is.

Article Sources

I heavily researched the latest research papers on coronavirus transmission and viability for this article, along with research reports on mask efficiency and exhales droplets. New information on the coronavirus is coming out daily, and I will update this article as needed. This article was reviewed by an epidemiologist.

Email me Feedback, Questions and Comments

Send to coronavshopping@gmail.com. And if you found the article helpful I’d love to hear from you — Scott