Remember back at the beginning of this pandemic when that video was going around of a doctor

meticulously cleaning his groceries?

Now this side of the table is going to be my clean side.

And we're going to consider the other side of the table as a dirty side where we're going to put our groceries from outside the house.

The upshot of his advice was simple. Think of the coronavirus like glitter. It's going to get everywhere. You've been warned.

And imagine that disinfectants and soap, they have the power to dissolve that glitter.

This doctor, he puts fruits and veggies and soapy water. He wipes down cardboard boxes with

sanitizer. And the intent here is good. But a few months later, I don't know about you, but I'm not

doing this. not even close.

I think we were all in such a panic and so worried that everything that we heard made us take it to

the extreme level.

Apurva Mandavili, she's a science writer over the New York Times.

Since the beginning, she's been marveling at the ways in which we are

trying to apply science to our lives right away. So, you know, if somebody coughs and sneezes,

that droplet can fall on a surface, became immediately, oh my God, the postman is going to deliver

a package, and I'm going to touch it it and I'm going to get sick and die.

So there's just all of the steps in between of, well, how long ago would he have needed to cough on it? And how long after that did I need to touch it and how much virus did there need to be and how much of the virus was still alive?

And all of those subtleties got lost in the panic.

As a reporter, trying to understand what we definitively know about this virus, it means

accounting for all these little subtleties so you can cut through the panic.

And the stakes are high. Rinsing off groceries sounds paranoid now. But some people still think mask wearing is paranoid.

And once a belief like that gets cemented in place, it can be hard to change.

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