(no subject)

[girlofprey]

My dad's colleague who was in hospital has died. Which is really sad.

And my mum chose to spend at least some of our government-alloted walk today moving around a glass bottle in a bin literally filled with dog poo. It's the no-fouling bin. She wanted to see what was on the label, which said it was alcoholic, and she said "ooh, people have been up here drinking, they shouldn't be doing that, should they?". No mum, and they also shouldn't be touching hard surfaces that people we don't know have clearly, since yesterday, had their hands and mouth on, in a BIN FILLED WITH DOG POO. When I first saw her doing it, I just thought it was disgusting. It wasn't until later, when I saw her touch her face to shield her eyes from the sun, and scratch an itch just above her mouth, that it occured to me it was probably an infection risk too. A thing I wouldn't even do under normal circumstances. Her choices baffle me.

Comments

[breyzyyin]

I am so sorry to hear about your dad's colleague. That is very sad.

Ah, those types of choices would baffle me too. 0_0; I suppose not everyone thinks about the risk of infection or even hygiene sometimes.

[girlofprey]

She's a nurse though. You'd think she would think of hygiene. It's the type of thing she'd do outside of a pandemic that I'd think was disgusting but would probably be fine - but in the current situation it just has that extra layer of 'wtf' to it. But if it was genuinely dangerous at all, it's just a silly mistake, and you can't exactly fault people for that. And the risk is still pretty low - anyone ill is probably not going to be boozing up a field anyway. So we're just going to have to see if anything comes of it.

[whatho]

I remember quite early on in all this, my parents and I were watching BBC Breakfast and they were discussing avoidance techniques such as pressing lift buttons etc with your knuckles instead of the tip of your finger, and I, who's been pressing buttons with my knuckles for as long as I can remember because I don't want colds and norovirus, said outloud 'Who presses buttons with the tips of their fingers?', and it turns out both my parents do.

That said, I passed a nice drystone wall on my walk a few days ago and unthinkingly stroked it.

[girlofprey]

I also try to press buttons with my knuckles, but then I also try to rub my eyes with my knuckles or the side of my hand, rather than touch them with my fingertips. So I don't know how much benefit I get out of it overall.

The risk of infection from surfaces is I think pretty low - they've made the point that this is very much an infection that gets passed in respiratory particles from people's breath more than anything else - so I think it probably is fine. It's just such an anxious time, everything unusual just makes me tense. And then she forgot she'd touched anything! But it probably is fine. This pandemic is not doing wonders for my OCD.