Despite hearing this on NPR, I can't stop disinfecting!

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@DrDeth

Post 17.

Post 17 says:

@Ranch_Dip

There is still a lot that is unknown about COVID-19 and how it spreads. Coronaviruses are thought to be spread most often by respiratory droplets. Although the virus can survive for a short period on some surfaces, it is unlikely to be spread from domestic or international mail, products or packaging. However, it may be possible that people can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

As I noted in a previous post:

@Heffalump_and_Roo

That’s low, not zero. For a given individual, they have to decide if they want to live with a “low” risk or take some fairly easy precautions to cut that risk down further.

@elfkin477

But why do they think the people caught it from touching the objects rather than breathing in air the positive person coughed out? If I correctly recall, the person who caught it from the elevator was in the elevator shortly after the sick person who wasn’t wearing a mask.

Because it doesn’t account for all the cases and because it’s possible, so my question would be why rule out possible infection from contact with an object.

I went searching for more information on the elevator button incident. I found that there are actually 2 elevator button incidents, the one in New Zealand and one in China. WebMD lists two possible cases of contact transmisson while the Salon article lists two possible cases of contact transmission from New Zealand for at least 4 possible cases of contact transmission.

In late May, the CDC updated its website to say it’s possible, but unlikely, for people to catch the virus this way. Surface transmission may have played a role in two cases. A recent study from China documented possible transmission through an elevator button, and another study of cases in a South African hospital found that contaminated medical equipment may have helped spread the virus.

The circumstance that’s rare is not necessarily that the people got the virus from contact transmission, it’s that they were in managed isolation at the time. Not many places in the world have a managed isolation so strict and controlled that they can identify a possible case of contact transmission.

If someone in the US said that they hadn’t had any other contact with people for any length of time, people would just say they’re lying since there’s not any way to prove it. It’s possible that it happens more often in the US. There just wouldn’t be many easy ways to prove it.

And here’s a possible outbreak possibly caused by fomite transmission.

An outbreak associated with a shopping mall in Wenzhou, China, may have been fueled by fomite transmission. In January, seven workers who shared an office in a shopping mall became ill when one of their co-workers returned from Wuhan. The mall was closed, and public health officials tracked two dozen more sick people, including several women who had shopped at the mall, as well as their friends. None of them had come into contact with the original sick office workers. The researchers speculated that a women’s restroom or the mall elevators had been the source of transmission.

If there are multiple incidents where the possibilities point to fomite transmission and there isn’t a way to trace that in many parts of the world, there isn’t enough information to say that it doesn’t happen in other places.

Those are just the cases I found on a quick search for the elevator button incident. There may be more cases that I didn’t go looking for.

Experts, including the CDC do say that fomite transmission is possible.

Here’s how fomite transmission works. An infected person coughs or sneezes on their hands. Some of the droplets may splash onto a nearby surface, or the person spreads the germs by touching a faucet or countertop before washing his hands. Studies show that coronavirus can last up to three days on plastic and steel, but once it lands on a surface, the amount of viable virus begins to disintegrate in a matter of hours. That means a droplet on a surface is far more infectious right after the sneeze — not so much a few days later.

Next, you have to come along and touch the contaminated surface, pick up enough viable virus on your hands, and then touch your eyes, nose or mouth. If all goes well for the virus, you will get sick.

“There’s a long chain of events that would need to happen for someone to become infected through contact with groceries, mail, takeout containers or other surfaces,” said Julia Marcus, an infectious disease epidemiologist and assistant professor in the department of population medicine at Harvard Medical School. “The last step in that causal chain is touching your eyes, nose or mouth with your contaminated hand, so the best way to make sure the chain is broken is washing your hands.”

Other experts say that it’s still possible to get covid from touching objects.

But other health experts reiterate that it’s important not to forget that even though the risk is low, it it still possible to get COVID from objects. “High touch surfaces like railings and doorknobs, elevator buttons are not the primary driver of the infection in the United States,” comparative immunologist Erin Bromage , PhD, a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth told The New York Times in May. “But it’s still a bad idea to touch your face. If someone who is infectious coughs on their hand and shakes your hand and you rub your eyes—yes, you’re infected. Someone’s drinking from a glass, and you pick it up near the rim and later rub your eyes or mouth, you’re infected.”

There’s enough vagueness in that (like how many hours between the time the virus is clearly infectious until it can’t be detected is it possibly infectious), along with the recorded cases that makes me think that it’s possible to happen, it probably has happened, and that taking a few precautions can reduce the risk even further.

Sources:
Salon (2 NZ cases)
RNZ (rubbish bin incident)
WebMD (on two other cases)
CDC on China elevator button incident
CBS
NYTimes (on fomite transmission)
Better health online (other experts)