My family has been isolating as much as possible since mid-March, and we have been quarantining our mail and packages for 5 days where possible before opening. I know I saw early on that transmission by mail was unlikely, but ‘this has not been shown to happen’ is not very convincing with a disease so new and it certainly seemed that something handled by many strangers should be treated with caution. Now that we’ve had a few months I’m ready to re-evaluate my position if we have any new information.
Do we know any more about how long the virus might be catchable from a paper surface? Has anybody ever gotten covid-19 from mail, packages, or other deliveries? Would 48 hours be sufficient? Is mail quarantine entirely unnecessary?
The local court is quarantining mail for 24 hrs. It appears that is a good choice. They deal with such vast quantities.
I get the mail daily, don’t let anyone else touch it. I recycle or open as needed and then thoroughly wash my hands when done. Early on I read this was sufficient.
I handle the packages the same way.
5 days is very extreme. 2 days would be erring on the side of caution.
It’s looking closer to “entirely unnecessary”. At this point 'this has not been shown to happen’ is pretty darn compelling, imho. A CBC article discussing it mentions that the WHO still maintains the possibility but experts say that’s based on unrealistic lab settings.
From what I understand, a vast majority of people are not getting this through touching surfaces. Even if it is on there, the viral load is not sufficient most of the time. I haven’t been bothering with this or hand sanitizer for months and (knock on wood) I still haven’t gotten it yet.
For all intents and purposes … fomites (publicly-touched objects, groceries, mail, packages, etc.) have essentially been ruled out as a transmission vector for COVID. The “lasts a long time on surfaces” lab tests that got a lot of press in February and early March tested artificial conditions that aren’t met in real life. Plus, too often in these tests they were detecting “dead” remnants of viruses and treating the findings as though they were finding “live” infectious viruses.
Following the link to The Lancet, in RealityCheck71’s article I find
In my opinion, the chance of transmission through inanimate surfaces is very small, and only in instances where an infected person coughs or sneezes on the surface, and someone else touches that surface soon after the cough or sneeze (within 1–2 h). I do not disagree with erring on the side of caution…periodically disinfecting surfaces and use of gloves are reasonable precautions especially in hospitals…
In other words, quarantine might be reasonable for a period of hours. But he was also basing his opinion partly on the viral load of influenza:
Although I did not find measurements of coronavirus quantities in aerosol droplets from patients, the amount of influenza virus RNA in aerosols has been measured, with a concentration equivalent to 10–100 viral particles in a droplet…
If you’re concerned enough that you won’t open the mail for 5 days, I have two possible suggestions for you.
When you get the mail, open it up, outside, next to your garbage/recycling bin. Toss the envelops, toss the junk, toss anything you can quickly read and be done with and the remaining mail, do what you’d like with. Then remove your disposable gloves or wash your hands. At least this way you’re not waiting 5 days to even see what’s in it.
The other thing would be to find a way to leave the mail outside in direct sunlight. You’d have to have it all laid out, outdoors directly in the sun, then go back some time later and flip it over. The UV rays can kill the virus, but it’s a line of sight thing. So the sun has to actually hit each surface.
Of course, both these options will only help to get rid of any virus on the envelopes. Likely from somewhere in the mail chain. They’re not going to do anything for the contents. So if the sender has the virus and sneezed all over your letter than licked the envelope shut, that’s a whole other thing.
Well, that’s just the procedure we adopted in March, when “virus found on cardboard after 4 days”, and “virus found on cruise ship after 17 days” and similar headlines were everywhere. I haven’t wanted to change our behavior just because it’s inconvenient, but I figured we might have a better idea by now and be able to simplify our lives. Mostly it’s not a problem to get the mail 5 days later, just annoying.
RealityCheck71’s article comes pretty close to what I was looking for. I’m just trying to be cautious at a time when the disease here in the US is spreading faster than ever before.
The bolded is a common problem with almost all the “how long does it last on surfaces” studies – viral particles can’t sicken anyone. Intact viruses are required.
Well, let’s flesh out the entire paragraph from The Lancet:
None of these studies present scenarios akin to real-life situations. Although I did not find measurements of coronavirus quantities in aerosol droplets from patients, the amount of influenza virus RNA in aerosols has been measured, with a concentration equivalent to 10–100 viral particles in a droplet, with even fewer infectious influenza virus particles capable of growth in a plaque assay. By contrast, one study found human coronavirus 229E to survive for only 3 h, and human coronavirus OC43 to survive for 1 h, after drying on various surfaces including aluminum, sterile latex surgical gloves, and sterile sponges. In a study in which the authors tried to mimic actual conditions in which a surface might be contaminated by a patient, no viable SARS-CoV was detected on surfaces.
Due to the work I do, I receive a lot of mail. Much of it is licked and goodness knows how many people handle it before it reaches me. Like you, I initially practiced a strict quarantine process.
As more information on surface infection has become available, I now quarantine mail for about 24 hours. I open what I need to open after that period and leave the rest for as many days as I can before opening it. I wash my hands after and call it good.
I mostly only quarantined early on. Now I mostly just dump the contents of boxes in a safe place, and read through the other stuff, throwing stuff away. Then I wash my hands.
The only quarantining I do is that, if I need to keep something I opened, I don’t touch it again until the next day. But that was kinda what I already do with mail–I’ve never gotten something in the mail and then immediately used it.
Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, since the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours and on surfaces up to days (depending on the inoculum shed)
Of course, that’s back in March.
Then, the study “in which no viable virus was found” concluded
Although the viruses identified may have been noninfectious, health care workers should be aware that SARS coronavirus can contaminate environmental surfaces in the hospital, and fomites should be considered to be a possible mode of transmission of SARS
We quarantine our mail for 48 hours. If something looks important, or might have chocolate in it, we open it, then dispose of the packaging, clean our hands,. then read it. Having watched our substitute mail carrier and a UPS carrier both sneeze into their elbows, then carry packages in a way that touched that spot on their elbows, I’m okay with the delay.