LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. – Going grocery shopping during the coronavirus pandemic looks a lot different these days. Instead of grabbing keys and reusable shopping bags, shoppers are donning masks and gloves. However, there are additional steps you can take to decrease your chance of exposure according to Orange County surgeon, Dr. Harish Yalamanchili.

"Even before I leave the house, I prepare what I call my washing station," said Dr. Yalamanchili, who uses his medical expertise to protect himself from coronavirus.

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His washing station at home consists of a bucket of water, veggie wash, mild dish soap and a drying area.

"There’s my preparation station as I call it," he said. The prep area also contains disposable gloves and masks, wipes, hand sanitizer and scissors.  

When Dr. Yalamanchili is finally ready to head to the grocery store, he brings extra masks, a paper shopping list and a credit card in his pocket.

"Make sure you go in, you shop and you leave as soon as possible," he said. "This is not the time to browse. This is not the time to look on your phone to figure out if you have things for a recipe."

The surgeon also insists that hard as it may be, you should leave your cell phone in the car or at home. Dr. Yalamanchili says having it increases your risk of contamination.

"The second you touch your phone [with the hand] you’ve touched your grocery cart with, that phone is now contaminated so that becomes the point of contamination and then can be the point of contamination for the majority of other things you’re doing, like your car," he said. 

He says bringing your cell phone also increases your time in the store.

"I don’t want you to take the phone, answer the phone in the middle of your shopping session or look at your phone any more than necessary," said Dr. Yalamanchili.

He also urges shoppers to make infrequent trips to the store because while social distancing seems to work while waiting to shop, it doesn't seem to work inside.

"This plan of having us wait six feet on the outside, none of this is followed in the store," he observed. 

Once Dr. Yalamanchili is done shopping, he places his groceries in the trunk before removing his gloves to avoid contamination in the car's cabin. Once he's home, the work begins.

He dons fresh gloves and a mask before using alcohol wipes for containers with holes and stronger sanitizing wipes for solid packages. Yalamanchili washes produce and eggs and leaves most items in an outdoor refrigerator. He also places non-perishable items in the garage for 48 hours.

For items that have to go inside, like eggs, the surgeon says be sure to let them dry because that helps kill the virus.

Dr. Yalamanchili says even if you follow all these steps, you can still be exposed to the virus if you don't use your protective gear properly, like a face mask.

"The way to put on a mask, put the elastic around your ears, pull down. Usually there’s a metal piece, you want to pinch it and really form the mask around your nose so the air you breathe is filtered through the mask," he said.

As for taking off your mask, Yalamanchili says make sure your hands are as clean as possible so after applying sanitizer to your hands, let them dry and then grab the rubber bands and pull the mask straight off.

When it comes to taking off your gloves without cross-contamination, Yalamanchili says start from your wrists up.

"I’m touching the actually glove, pull it up, pull it down...see how it automatically inverts so the inside is now on the outside, technically, the cleanest part of my fingers are inside the glove because I’m going to use them to take my left glove off," he said.

Thinking like a surgeon is a lot of work for a trip to the grocery store but the payoff can be big.

"You’re not only protecting yourself, you’re protecting everyone around you," he said.

The last thing Dr. Yalamanchili does is take his clothes off in the garage before taking a shower. He leaves them in the garage for two days before washing them. He says if you don't have a garage, you can still have a staging area right inside your front door.