How safe are we at home?

[Babyfairy0923]

This sounds ridiculous but things like post coming in, deliveries, takeaways??
Should we be wiping everything down?
Obviously we wash our hands after handling everything.

It survives on clothes and surfaces and who knows if someone coughed on your food if you order cooked food?

It's very likely to spread this way. If you live in a block of flats, think about when you touch door handles, press lift buttons, open the rubbish bin.

My friend works in Lloyds pharmacy. She dropped off a packet of paracetamol for us last night, she just put it inside the front door, then she texted me to say please be careful with it because she was positive two customers had coronavirus yesterday, they were coughing all over the place. She said they've been told it lasts 6 hours on things like that.

Probably not. I had a Tesco’s delivery today and the man was coughing

Apparently it can linger in the air for 3 hours and on hard surfaces for 3 days

I did hear 9 days on the news but this article seems to say it's 3.

Source:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-surfaces-study/index.html

It can last on surfaces so I’m opening the post then washing hands immediately. The postman looked terrified yesterday. He left a parcel on the doorstep, rang the bell then shouted from across the road to me. Poor bloke! X

Not even safe at home then ☹️

You've got a point.
I live on a housing estate in a block of flats.
So it is possible that if one of my neighbors has it they could pass it on to others.

Mine is with a housing Assosiation and the nieghbors here are not very caring about how they look after the plce.
They throw their food and rubbish on the floor in the communal grounds and throw their bin bags full with rubbish on the floor in our bin store,some leave them outside.
And we have mice because of this, not in the flats just in thew ground and I have told my HA but they don't do anything about it and I have been complaining about this to them for 2 years.

And I don't think my neighbors would go out and get food for me if I was on a lockdown. Maybe it's time for me to think about moving.
'

It can last on surfaces so I’m opening the post then washing hands immediately

Dr Sarah Jarvis on radio 2 advised this. Open post, put envelopes straight in the bin, wash hands.

I read that it lasts 24 hrs on cardboard and 3 days on metal/plastic (can't say if that's true or not obviously) So now I'm just leaving all post by the door and opening it the next day then washing my hands after

Religious hand washing. Bin external packaging then wash your hands. Disinfect door handles. Just be really on top of hygiene and you will mitigate a lot of the risk.

How are safe are you at home? Very safe.

Should you practice good hygiene to avoid transmission, such as washing your hands after opening the post? Absolutely.

To put in perspective, we know from observing the data that on average each infectious person transmits the virus to 2.2 people if they are in a population where no one is immune. Most transmissions occur where people are in close contact eg at home or a healthcare setting.

So if you think about how many people an infectious person will have contact with in the 5 days (on average) they are infectious before they have symptoms and then the number of people they will be in close contact with once they are symptomatic and infectious (the 2.2 number is based on a hypothetical situation where they are not self isolating), that is a lot of people. Yet only 2.2 will be infected by them. The people who catch it will be most likely be the person they live with or who cares for them, or they coughed on at close quarters.

You could catch coronavirus from a cardboard box in theory but it is a very low risk particularly if you practice sensible hygiene. You can catch HIV and Hepatitis B (highly contagious) from a needlestick injury but even then the odds are 1 in 300 and 1 in 3 respectively.

There is a risk so you need to take precautions but you really are very, very safe at home.

Cinnamon that's exactly what I've been doing. Any parcel gets left by the door for 24 hours then opened, cardboard/paper binned to recycle & hands washed. Likewise, any groceries I touch soon after delivery I wash my hands once I've opened them. After they've been in a cupboard for a while I figure they're fine. I'm sure I read this morning that it can potentially survive on cardboard for 24 hours but under the "experimental conditions" so I'm guessing less time in our homes.

NHS have told me not to panic about packaging, or envelopes - just wash hands regularly and especially after touching things multiple others may have touched . She said for example, groceries that are lying loose, lift buttons or communal doors . But inside doors, food packaging that’s in the house, is OK . And said they haven’t any concrete evidence about survival on envelopes but just said, wash your hands when you open them .

I went for a drive with my boys earlier and was wondering the exact same thing. My eldest has an autoimmune condition and this virus will likely kill him. I was driving and speculating whether it could get in through my air vents

I think we all need to calm down a bit...

Recently published research suggests it’s likely that it can live on SOME hard surfaces for up to 9 days:

The analysis of 22 studies reveals that human coronaviruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus or endemic human coronaviruses (HCoV) can persist on inanimate surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to 9 days, but can be efficiently inactivated by surface disinfection

Source: Journal of Hospital Infection
Link: www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30046-3/fulltext?mobileUi=0

All the experts interviewed on BBC and quoted in reputable articles are saying post and parcels are a very unlikely source of transmission. Just because virus particles can be detected on surfaces under laboratory conditions, it doesn't mean it's the same in everyday circumstances.

Similarly they've said other respiratory illnesses are not known to spread through food.

Obviously there is a tiny chance that someone coughed on your take away container and you then touch it and touch your mouth afterwards - but seriously has anyone ever thought they caught a cold or flu from a parcel or a pizza box? If you use food places with good hygiene practices, hopefully no one has coughed on your meal anyway!

That’s what the NHS helpline said to me when I phoned them in a panic, she said in ordinary circumstances would you recoil in horror from your post and start bleaching the carpet under it .. if not no, just wash your hands before eating, and after leaving the home and after dealing with people coming in . If it were genuinely the case that post was a major risk I really believe they’d have stopped all takeaways, carrier bags, fresh fruit and veg, fresh pastries etc etc . They haven’t .

It's also not some super bug floating in the air outdoors - if it was, almost all of us would be ill by now!

Kittens our postie did the same, they were quite literally scuttling away from the front door pointing to our doorstep.

I was driving and speculating whether it could get in through my air vents

@Knocksomesense no, you can't catch it through your air vents. Measles is 8-9 times more contagious than coronavirus and spread through the air. You wouldn't worry about catching measles from driving past someone, would you? (I mean that kindly, not sarcastically)

We should be safest at home as we have direct access to hand washing facilities so wash your hands after deliveries.

On cardboard it can last for days

I was wondering about this also, and decided that it’s best not to think about it. Coming in contact with it does not mean you are guaranteed to get it, so I trying to assume that the risk is low.