Member-only story
Starting to Slip Up? Your Brain Is Entering Quarantine Fatigue.
Have you stopped disinfecting your groceries? You’re not alone. Constant coronavirus vigilance is taking a toll.
Before the FedEx driver made it to the bottom of my driveway, I was bounding out the door to grab the package he’d just left. It wasn’t until I’d plopped it onto the counter and sliced it open that I realized I hadn’t thought to disinfect it, or been patient enough to let it sit for 20 minutes, let alone 24 hours (the length of time studies show the coronavirus can survive on cardboard).
That’s not the only way I’m slipping; I’m still washing my produce, but I’ve stopped thoroughly disinfecting all of my groceries. I’m still washing my hands, of course, but it seems like the current bottle of soap is lasting much longer than the ones before it. And honestly, I couldn’t tell you the last time I disinfected my laptop keyboard, or wiped down the backs of my kitchen chairs.
In the grand scheme of things, those lapses are pretty minor, but I’m certainly not alone in cutting corners. As we near the fourth month of social distancing and stay-at-home measures, plenty of people are finding themselves being much less vigilant than they were at the pandemic’s outset. Jackie Gollan, PhD, a clinical psychologist…
