What about office workers?

[Kev Williams]

I'm surprised I haven't heard much of anything about the employees of the USPS, and all other shipping firms. It seems to me at least, their 'ground force' employees MUST be nearly as vulnerable to picking up this virus as hospital workers, since they 'pick up' everything else...

And secondary to them would be, US! --Are all of you sanitizing your mail and Amazon packages, your mailbox door handle, etc..? Or are you waiting beyond the estimated 24 hours time the virus will live on cardboard and (I assume) other paper products? Or--?

[Aaron Rosenthal]

I'm in Vancouver, Canada. We're also listening to the doctors and getting ready for a huge increase in cases. All the hospitals are closed except for emergency cases. Unfortunately my daughter was seriously injured at work 2 1/2 weeks ago, and my wife has been visiting every day. Tonight we were told the hospital is closed to all visitors.
I've long ago taken over shopping, and most outside activities. My eldest at-home son has a part time job that I drive him to - I don't want him risking the rest of us on public transit.
I'm in a service job that the Jewish community considers essential, so our Executives are giving us emergency travel documentation in case we have to travel, for law enforcement officers.
Still riding my motorcycle - hard to get Corona in the open air by myself.

[Curt Harms]

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Curt, is your particular work curtailed with less private travel?

Not so far. I was having to drive from home to New Castle DE. frequently the past couple weeks. Once the 'stay home' order came out the trip was shortened by 30 minutes or more. I did notice more state troopers on the Blue Route (I476) checking speeds though. Excess speed is not normally an issue on the Blue Route. For those not familiar the Blue Route has been characterized as 'obsolete the day it opened' (lacking capacity).

[Jim Becker]

I'm surprised I haven't heard much of anything about the employees of the USPS, and all other shipping firms. It seems to me at least, their 'ground force' employees MUST be nearly as vulnerable to picking up this virus as hospital workers, since they 'pick up' everything else...

USPS workers are wearing gloves (and have been for a long time). Foiks who do actual delivery do the same but are out in the air and most often are not in contact with other people. (same for UPS, FedEX, etc) They are all reducing risk by using PPE for contact with their hands, etc. Probably the largest risk is in the distribution centers but that's largely automated.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Jim, last night on the news was an item about UPS.

Theire drivers have no PPE, no hand sanitizer and are worried about their contacts during their day.

In Canada it looks like the company is all talk as their solution was that the drivers had access to washrooms at work with soap....Rod

[Jim Becker]

UPS guy who dropped off a package yesterday was wearing blue nitrile gloves, Rod.

[Edwin Santos]

UPS guy who dropped off a package yesterday was wearing blue nitrile gloves, Rod.

On a related note, have you changed your handling of packages and items you receive, even food deliveries? If so, how?

[Jim Becker]

On a related note, have you changed your handling of packages and items you receive, even food deliveries? If so, how?

I'm about to go drop off two packages at the UPS store to send back to a client since we mutually agreed that him picking up wasn't going to happen. He sent the boxes and paid for both directions. Hand washing is constant here. The parade of folks delivering for Amazon is normal but there is almost never any physical presence with them. Many are wearing gloves to my observation. We are still shopping at local markets for food and taking appropriate precautions. Our older daughter works in a market, so quick pickups happen there. We live in a more rural area so food delivery is more spotty relative to availability. One thing that may change is that normally we shop for food together, but may have to start making it a one person trip. That's relatively easy if I'm the one to go since I do the majority of the cooking and our daughter can purchase her specific needs at the market she works in. (She lives with us but buys some of her own food)

So...hand washing, minimal contact with delivery people, minimizing trips and keeping them fast and focused, etc.

[Rod Sheridan]

Good to hear Jim, keep safe...........Rod.

[Dave Anderson NH]

My wife is the office manager of a MA company which is exempt from the MA state order to close businesses. They distribute plastics and are a custom maker of plastic parts doing over 50% military business and a good chunk of medical instrument parts too. This makes them critical infrastructure. Unfortunately she cannot telecommute so she has to go in every day. The office layout allows wide spaces between workers and they have plenty of cleaning supplies. No office visitors are allowed, and customers must have their product shipped, not picked up. The only thing which makes her happy right now is the lack of traffic on the commute. Her hours are actually worse due to increased demand.

[Kev Williams]

On a related note, have you changed your handling of packages and items you receive, even food deliveries? If so, how?

Whenever I leave the house I take a small bottle of sanitizer with and wear nitrile gloves. Yesterday I dropped off several packages to the post office, before I went in I rubbed some sani over the gloves, then went in and and set my packages on the end of the counter as usual. Workers were wearing gloves, but not masks. On the floor they have yellow tape spaced 6' apart in the waiting-line area. They may have customers stand back from the counters farther now, but for the few seconds I was there, no one was at the counter, just one person waiting for a worker... Once I got out I sanitized again, then went to the dollar store. Sanitized me and the cart once I got in...Picked up some pretzels, some paper plates, magic erasers, and a few boxes of stretch leftover covers. When I left I sanitized again. (nitrile gloves sanitize great btw, a tiny bit smears the entire gloves, and my hands don't suffer) From there I headed to Walmart to pick up some dog treats and some smelly wax bars for the wife. Parking lot looked like December 26th. Just drove back out and headed home.

Once home I took the dollar store items into my garage shop, where a have a table with a sheet of thin copper on it-- copper, because it deactivates viruses in 4 hours or less. I laid everything on the copper sheet, and the wife misted it all with Lysol, I turned everything over and she misted it again. I sani'd the gloves again, took 'em off, then sani'd my hands. The stuff is still in the garage, and I'm 99% certain now that IF there was a virus hanging out on that stuff it's now compromised...