Thread by @DearPandemic

1/ Wiping groceries off cont'd:

But I heard that SARS-CoV-2 can survive on cardboard for 24 hours!?

Yes, in April, a @NEJM reported that in a laboratory setting, the virus remained viable on different surfaces for between 4 & 24 hrs. But labs & the real world are very different

2/ To date, there have *still* been no cases of COVID-19 linked to food/food packaging. As it turns out, it’s just very unlikely that we would ever get enough of the virus into our nose or mouth to make us sick through contact with surfaces.
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

3/ A couple of factors are at play here:
1️⃣ The mode of transmission - this virus cannot make you sick through your skin, or even through a scratch or a hangnail. It has to get right on your mucous membranes in your nose, mouth, or eyes--probably carried there via your own hands

4/ So for surface transmission to happen in the real world it takes a lot of steps. In a nutshell, the chain of events that it would take to lead to surface transmission is just very unlikely. Even better, it can be interrupted by simply washing your hands.

5/ 2️⃣ The “infectious dose” - that’s a science term for how many viral particles it takes to make you sick. Infectious dose varies for different viruses, & it's not precisely understood for this virus yet.

6/ In the lab setting, they were trying to find very tiny amounts of viral material in places where they knew it had been a few hrs before. In the real 🌎, your chances of getting enough of it from your Amazon 📦 into your nose are just lower.

7/ But what about the outbreaks in meat packing plants, surely that is evidence that we can catch COVID-19 from food??

The infections that have spread in meat packing plants have everything to do with the work environment in those plants, and nothing to do with the food itself.

8/ Meat packing plants are loud, fast-paced, dangerous places. Workers yell all day, work in close quarters, & generally do not get sick leave (which means they are incentivized to show up at work even if they're feeling off). cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6…

9/ Meat packing workers also tend to have multiple dimensions of social disadvantage, which puts them at risk for contracting COVID-19 for a whole other list of reasons from crowded housing to low English-language proficiency.

10/ And anyway, *even if* your meat processor sneezed directly on your T-bone... the heat from cooking it will be enough to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 (and just about everything else that might make you sick).