I haven’t heard anybody talking about credit cards or wallets as potentially-contaminated surfaces. I wonder why that is? We often handle them with unwashed hands, and those pin pads are pretty frequently touched as well.
From my perspective, my wallet is a part of “outside the house”. I don’t literally leave it outside, but I leave it in my coat’s pocket, and never touch it when I am inside. Now I learned to do the same thing with my keys—I open the door, put the keys in the pocket, remove the coat and hang it. Then I wash my hands. So the wallet and keys are not touched until I go for a walk again, so it’s kinda equivalent to leaving them outside.
The most problematic thing is the phone. That one I use both inside and outside, so I have to clean it a lot. (It would be nice to have two phones, where you could use one to remotely activate or deactivate the other. Then I would have an inside phone and an outside phone.)
More generally, this strategy seems like what cultures more obsessed with purity do. Instead of cleaning everything all the time, you specify various zones of cleanness, clean things when they cross the boundary in the wrong direction, and develop instincts against unthinkingly crossing the boundary in the wrong direction.
If your home is “pure” and the wallet is “impure”, then obviously you shouldn’t handle the wallet at your home, unless you carefully perform the “purification ritual”. You don’t even have to remember why the wallet is “impure”, just the fact that it is. And if you keep these rules all your life, you won’t forget it, because the though of using the wallet at your home will automatically invoke a feeling of “dirtiness”.
I also mentally categorize objects as clean or unclean.
It would be nice to have two phones, where you could use one to remotely activate or deactivate the other.
I think there are ways to approximate this with what’s already available. I.e. use a Bluetooth headset to take calls when at home. Use a home-only tablet for the apps instead of the phone when at home. A lot of them can sync via the cloud these days. If there are notifications or alarms you need to dismiss, you could use a smart watch. You can also use the smartwatch for text messages. There are also ways to text from the tablet or a computer.
You might also consider apps that mirror your phone on your computer over WiFi, like ApowerMirror. Then you can access your phone from inside your pocket when at home.
I haven’t heard anybody talking about credit cards or wallets as potentially-contaminated surfaces. I wonder why that is? We often handle them with unwashed hands, and those pin pads are pretty frequently touched as well.
From my perspective, my wallet is a part of “outside the house”. I don’t literally leave it outside, but I leave it in my coat’s pocket, and never touch it when I am inside. Now I learned to do the same thing with my keys—I open the door, put the keys in the pocket, remove the coat and hang it. Then I wash my hands. So the wallet and keys are not touched until I go for a walk again, so it’s kinda equivalent to leaving them outside.
The most problematic thing is the phone. That one I use both inside and outside, so I have to clean it a lot. (It would be nice to have two phones, where you could use one to remotely activate or deactivate the other. Then I would have an inside phone and an outside phone.)
More generally, this strategy seems like what cultures more obsessed with purity do. Instead of cleaning everything all the time, you specify various zones of cleanness, clean things when they cross the boundary in the wrong direction, and develop instincts against unthinkingly crossing the boundary in the wrong direction.
If your home is “pure” and the wallet is “impure”, then obviously you shouldn’t handle the wallet at your home, unless you carefully perform the “purification ritual”. You don’t even have to remember why the wallet is “impure”, just the fact that it is. And if you keep these rules all your life, you won’t forget it, because the though of using the wallet at your home will automatically invoke a feeling of “dirtiness”.
I also mentally categorize objects as clean or unclean.
I think there are ways to approximate this with what’s already available. I.e. use a Bluetooth headset to take calls when at home. Use a home-only tablet for the apps instead of the phone when at home. A lot of them can sync via the cloud these days. If there are notifications or alarms you need to dismiss, you could use a smart watch. You can also use the smartwatch for text messages. There are also ways to text from the tablet or a computer.
You might also consider apps that mirror your phone on your computer over WiFi, like ApowerMirror. Then you can access your phone from inside your pocket when at home.
Out of curiosity, how does the jacket pocket thing work in the summer?
So far I was never protecting myself against coronavirus in summer.
Under more usual circumstances, I simply don’t think about my phone as a possible infection vector. Which is possibly a big mistake.
The wallet is usually in some bag.