Coronavirus concerns mega-thread

I have a doll sucked in Korea for half year. Waiting for long time and infected number is rising every month.
I put it on my sale list as i am not interested on the doll anymore.

 

One thing I've noticed here in Canada is that package costs have skyrocketed if you need to mail overseas. I tried to mail a package to a friend in the UK, the package was 2kg and it would have cost $150 CAD to mail! This makes shipping BJDs really complicated..

 

There are several dolls on the Marketplace now that I would love to buy, but the chaos USPS has been in lately makes me afraid to have things shipped to me. Now I'm stuck hoping they won't find buyers until the situation is resolved.

 

Very sad, but very common situation.
International Russian post have been lost my quite desired head I order in may.
it’s still not any updates. I’m not sure I’ll be happy when I’ll get it . IF I’ll get ever

 

I've sent a couple of dolls within Europe without problems, but I'm afraid to ship to other continents because all the troubles I read here about delays, customs, returned items... It doesn't feel safe at the moment

 

I have recently sent a few parcels and registered letters overseas. Most of them have already arrived, to my impression most of them even sooner than e.g. a year or two ago.

 

I think Europe really has been saved the postal misery of some countries. No increased prices or even any extreme delays. I recently shipped out a doll to the US and it arrived there in a week costing only 35 euros to ship, including tracking.

 

I've had things from Russia get really delayed. And America is both delayed and has gone up in shipping costs massively on some sites and not at all on others. I'm delaying doll no.3 because I don't want him lost in postal limbo. A few countries have shipping bans to certain places and Australia falls on many of them - Spain, Japan, Belarus. If a place is limiting who they are shipping to then we are usually left out. It would be really stressful for those with pre-orders and layaways in those countries that are nearing completion.

 

Yeah, we seem to be lucky. I have had no problems mailing out.. but receiving has been another matter. Great big delays.. but I can safely say now thank god everything has arrived. But I did have to upgrade to express a few times -at double the cost- since it was the only way to ship out (thats when the mail goes on cargo planes in stead of shipping or waiting for commercial flights to take it) Atm it seems ok again, but with rising numbers and a new lockdown I think we are going to be in trouble again. Costs to Canada and the US have gone up severely since the start of covid, all other parts of the world seem to have returned to somewhat normal shipping prices.

 

Finally my doll arrived in August, but already sold
My latest trouble is an outfit sent abroad but no updates on tracking for nearly 2 weeks.
The buyer is asking for refund if nothing is received in November.
Post Office just repeatedly said nothing they can do.
Bad luck

 

Hi everyone, I've been on hiatus for a bit but am slowly catching up with some of the threads on DOA. I didn't find anything about this specifically, so I'm just curious: Do you do anything differently when you receive your dolls post-pandemic? It could be used or brand new dolls, but do you wipe down their boxes or the dolls themselves? Are there any COVID precautions you take when doing box openings?

 

Me, personally, no, because generally things I get in the mail take longer than 24 hours to reach me, and most viruses don't survive that out in the world, but you should do what makes you feel most comfortable c:

If you want to wipe down your packaging or dolls, just be careful with alchohol wipes on your dolls, because you could potentially damage body blushing and faceups. Otherwise I would say if you bought a doll that was heavily blushed, and worry about viruses, wear gloves and place the doll somewhere in your house to quarantine for 24 hours, and that would work too.

 

The virus has not been proven to survive on surfaces for more than a few hours, if that. The doll should not have any risk, just like we found out pretty early on in the pandemic that you don’t have to disinfect your fruit when you get it home from the store. Postal carriers wear gloves and shouldn’t be risking the package either, and if it’s left in the sun, UV rays also kill the virus after a few minutes. Take your normal precautions as you would when purchasing anything from a store or getting your mail.

 

I'm not doing anything special. COVID particles don't survive for very long on surfaces without a human host (roughly 3 days on plastic according to the NIH, which is longer than the standard shipping time to me), especially when exposed to the elements like heat and sunshine. I'm also fortunate enough to have gotten my first dose of the vaccine and I'll be getting my second dose next weekend. That said, I wear my mask and wash my hands if and when I need to sign for things or exchange packages with my postal carriers to minimize exposure and spread risk.

I agree with @FrozenSunset - you should absolutely do what makes you comfortable, but you're probably better off quarantining your doll somewhere in your house for a few days than trying to wipe them down due to the nature of faceups and body blushing.

 

Most of the things I order come from either Russia or China, and I live in Switzerland (and I pay for tracking, not express shipping time). That's at least 1-2 weeks of shipping.

As the virus does not survive long on surfaces, I am not worried about the items themselves, but I do discard the cardboard quickly. If there is a risk of contamination by surface, it would be through the local postal workers, not the international ones.

 

I advise my customers to leave the package for 24 hours or so just to be cautious.

 

Well, I stopped licking the packages the moment I received them...if that is what you mean. XD (Just kidding, I have yet to lick a package). Honestly, the time anything in the mail is taking to get to me kills off pretty much anything that requires a host to survive. If you mean from the fact the courier put it on my doorstep, well I honestly never thought about that. Most of the time our couriers are using gloves, but I don't think I could make myself wait to open up a dolly box even if I wanted to.

 

My family asks that we wipe down the outsides of any packages we bring in, so the shipper gets a nice little wipe—their rationale is that it’s been handled at the sorting facility and by the courier the day I get it—the doll itself, as the fastest arrival I’ve had was still 3 days, I’ve never worried about disinfecting.

 

I take none, other than trashing immediately the outer box! Anyway my stuff comes from abroad and takes weeks to be delivered, the virus won't live that long. But the outer box can be infected recently by the postman, so that's the only thing I get rid of immediately.

 

I work in a library and we’ve been ~quarantining~ returned items for 72 hours... and it’s a waste of everyone’s time. You’re not going to get Covid from a surface; you’re going to get it from the jerk wearing their mask under their nose or chin, you’re going to get it from another customer in a restaurant, you’re going to get it from the gymbunny who lies and says they’re vaccinated and that wearing a mask while exercising is just *so hard*.

Also, it’s racist to assume that your overseas package could be infected from Covid, but not mention anything about your domestic packages. Why is a box from East Asia more worrisome to you than something delivered by an Amazon worker (a company notorious for forcing their delivery drivers to pee in bottles because they won’t even give them necessary bathroom breaks)? @lyaam12 was right; if anything, it’ll be your local posties ~contaminating~ the package.