Please Be Careful Trying to Help Others.

Tony from Masterton District

Hi. Many of you may have seen the TV1 report of people putting flyers into letterboxes to try to connect with neighbours, or leaving cans of food outside their neighbours houses.

It's great to see people looking out for each other at a time of great stress, but please be very careful when you do this.

Coronavirus spreads on objects. This is what makes it hard to contain. It lives for at least 24 hours on paper and cardboard, it lives for 12 hours on metal (some studies have found it still alive 4 days later) and 4 days on plastic.

So swapping bits of paper across families is a great way to spread it. This is why businesses have stopped accepting cash.

Coronavirus on objects is a hard concept to get your head around. I've explained it to my grandson as "the person who touched that before you had snot on their hands. Do you want to pick that up."

So try to stay connected, but please avoid object sharing or if you need to - wipe clean anything you share.