Originally Posted by Papa Tom

What makes me leery about this is the fact that, up until anybody was even thinking about re-opening restaurants and retail stores, epidemiologists and other scientists were pleading with us to scrub down every single grocery item or food take-out container with soap and water, to keep a "clean" surface and a "dirty" surface to avoid cross-contamination, and to wash our hands for twenty seconds any time we came in contact with virtually any surface or material that someone else may have touched. The minute they started announcing that the economy was going to start re-opening, the danger from surfaces magically went away.

I have trouble believing that restaurant tables and take-out food packaging have such powerful antiviral properties that, if an infected person coughed on one right now and I run my fingers over it five minutes from now, I won't have a fresh handful of active COVID-19 within arms reach of my face.

I certainly feel the same regret that others do about not being able to have a normal riding season this year, but I've decided that if taking a multi-day ride is going to be any way marred by COVID-related stress, I may as well stay home and just take many more local rides than usual.