Coronavirus is a respiratory disease, not a digestive one. You won’t be affected by eating it. Your stomach acid will kill it.
Yes, that is what I have read, too. Why is touching one’s mouth a potential way to get infected?
The puff pastry sample is not worth intestinal flu… Keep hands away from your mouth… ?
Oh yes, a lot more contagious than the flu. It also kills more. We don’t need to panic but you shouldn’t write off it is like any other flu.
When you touch your mouth, it is on the outside, right where you breathe in. When you eat, you swallow not breathe so the virus ends up in your tummy not in your lung. Not saying you shouldn’t care. Just trying to understand the loud alarm over the sample. To me, sample food is not any more dangerous than a crowded store. Or is it?
It’s good to note that one usually smells food. It’s part of what appeals to us and helps give us the “flavor.” (Cliff Note version) We don’t smell via our stomach. 
There are plenty of molecules in those samples to go around. A virus can hitchhike on any of them.
All mucous membranes are potential routes of infection, that includes the inside of one’s mouth.
UCSD is going online after this week, when the semester ends.
I usually live alone but one of my kids moved in with me and has a job as a receptionist in a wellness center. I am almost 70 and have health issues.
Having my daughter live here for this period of time raises some issues about how to stay safe. I cannot control what she does, can only suggest. I am hoping her workplace closes soon, honestly.
Still, while I may end up isolating myself, I think she will continue to be out in the world. I am not going to ask her to live somewhere else, obvlously, but am going to have to figure something out in terms of her sanitizing when returning to the apartment.
I wasn’t too worried until yesterday when the cases in our nearby city jumped up.
It’s being reported that flights can be changed and fees waived even for flights bought before 3/1.
It’s on American Airlines website but you have to scroll down a bit. Delta and united have already announced
Is there any reason to think the virus is hitching a ride in the aroma? I think they need mucous droplets to catch a ride. Usually droplets are too big to float around long, much less rise in the air from food on its own. I guess some of the virus in the food could stay on the mouth when you eat contaminated food.
So, with all the talks about airline being flexible. I tried to change my daughter’s spring break flights to leave today (instead of the 20th). So even though they waived the change fee, the new ticket price is $200 more. Which is strange because the plane is pretty empty…What gives?
Yep. Just changed a United flight for my D to come home early. They waived the $200 change fee because it was coronovirus related. We still had to pay the difference in fares. BUT, some parents on our school’s parent board are not having the same luck. Seems to depend who you get on the phone. We didn’t even have to ask.
It’s not about the virus being on the food necessarily. It’s about the crowd of people passing the virus by sneezing and coughing on each other and how all the finger lickers are also spreading their germs to the areas that then get touched by other people.
For example, all the people that keep talking about licking/spitting on/blowing on their fingers to open a produce bag have a hugely concentrated source of germs on their hands. They go to the sample table and touch the table (leaving germs), they touch the sample cup (leaving germs), if they hand the sample cup back to the nice sample lady the sample lady now has germs on her hand and when she makes your sample, you get the germs on your hand when you take it…
Washing your hands and not licking them isn’t about just protecting yourself, it’s about not spreading anything you have to other people.
In other words, it is the gathering crowd around the sample table that is the problem? I thought it might be.
I didn’t call - i booked through United and the change fee is automatically waived on-line. BUT they raised the price of the new ticket cost to $200 more(the flight is practically empty).
Yes, mostly. If we could convince everybody to cough/sneeze into the crook of their elbow and then be careful to remove themselves from a crowd if they’re coughing/sneezing and if we could convince everybody to keep their hands out of their mouth and wash their hands after using the bathroom and touching themselves, crowds wouldn’t be a big deal. Could you catch this stuff by someone just breathing on you from a few feet away? Possibly, but not highly likely - it’s being spread by people coughing/sneezing on each other and common surfaces, by people literally smearing their germs onto their hands and then touching things others touch.
@suteiki77 , my son is the same way with the lingering cough (in general). He actually got sent home from school once (after missing 7 days with the flu…he was better, doctors had authorized return to school, but the asthma causes a lingering cough and a teacher sent him home). Since you had the flu, and NOT Covid, maybe you could go back to work where you can explain it to people? But out in public, I do think constant coughing is going to be frowned upon!
My family has lots of flights this month and I have been price checking. Last week, they all were cheaper (not that we can do anything with that except Southwest). I’ve also cancelled and rebooked my rental car for the vacation we are still hoping to take; it dropped about $100. I wonder now though, with everything changing so rapidly, if the airlines have adjusted their usual demand-based pricing to keep prices higher in the very short term since they are getting hit hard financially.
Not sure, but at least domestically the airlines have cancelled a number of flights and reworked their schedules, so there is overall less capacity right now.
The fewer flights/seats that are left can still charge X dollars (I don’t pretend to understand airline pricing strategies!), that reflect the current decreased demand.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/solutions/2020/03/10/uw-madison-health-expert-has-advice-on-how-to-fight-coronavirus/5004659002/ This story contains reliable and useful information. Wisconsin so far has had only two confirmed cases; the second case was revealed yesterday; the first individual has recovered. I like my coworkers, but many of them seem to be engaging in wishful thinking about the likely spread of the disease.
That takes someone more knowledgeable than I am about the relative size of particles, etc. I agree that eating the virus itself - when it goes into the digestive system - is not harmful like a GI bug would be. But I also know particles rarely stick to “the” path assigned to them. Eating a rabid animal is “safe” (so I’ve read) except that particles can enter the blood stream in one’s mouth sometimes - and that’s certainly not safe. It could be deadly in that case.
Otherwise… I believe I’m off to buy some Gilead stock and will hope their drug in trial is successful for more than just the money aspect. A treatment that helps is worth far more than money. And if I end up losing, at least I know I did a small part to try to help fund them.
Any other drugs in trial?
This is one of those times when I want to say “trust the experts”. I guess you have to decide for you who the “experts” are. I’m going with the CDC on this one. I’m not going to question the decisions of Costco to not provide food samples or even of a school to close - those are not most likely life altering situations.
Drill down to what is most important. Your exposure, your self care. Wash hands hands and sanitize. Avoid crowds if possible. If you’re sick, isolate yourself and your germs (cough/sneeze) into your body not the outside environment).
Keep it simple folks. Like other crisis situations, take it in doses - turn off the news now and then and find something productive to participate in whether it’s work, cleaning your house, going for a walk, organizing a closet…