If you’re still disinfecting your groceries because of COVID-19, you can stop.
The risk of contracting the virus from touching a contaminated surface is actually quite low, the federal Centers of Disease Control said in a new scientific brief released this week.
How low?
“Generally less than 1 in 10,000, which means that each contact with a contaminated surface has less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of causing an infection,” the CDC briefing paper says.
Essentially, the paper concludes most people get COVID-19 by breathing contaminated air vs. touching a contaminated surface.
“The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus,” the briefing paper says. “It is possible for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites), but the risk is generally considered to be low.”
Hand washing is still recommended: “Case reports indicate that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted between people by touching surfaces an ill person has recently coughed or sneezed on, and then directly touching the mouth, nose, or eyes. Hand hygiene is a barrier to fomite transmission and has been associated with lower risk of infection.”
In fact, while hand hygiene does decrease the risk of COVID-19 transmission, “surface disinfection once- or twice-per-day had little impact on reducing estimated risks,” the paper said.
The CDC has updated its COVID-related cleaning recommendations to suggest that a daily cleaning is fine, and common spaces and contact points should be cleaned and disinfected if someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 has been in the space during that past 24 hours.
Disinfecting also may also be appropriate when there is a high transmission of COVID-19 in your community, a low number of people wearing mask and/or infrequent hand hygiene.
“A year ago, we were washing cereal boxes. But today we know even more about how this virus spreads,” said Dr. Mark Hamed, a public health physician who serves as county medical director in Huron, Lapeer, Sanilac, Tuscola, Alcona, Iosco, Ogemaw and Oscoda counties.
“Let’s put away the gloves and the Lysol and focus on what works,” he said. “The masking and ventilation, along with social distancing, those are the keys.”
The CDC has said that transmission of the virus can be reduced by up to 96.5% if both an infected individual and an uninfected individual wear tightly fitted surgical masks or a cloth-and-surgical-mask combination.
“Multi-layer cloth masks can both block up to 50-70%” of the droplets that carry the virus, a CDC briefing paper released in February said. “Upwards of 80% blockage has been achieved in human experiments that have measured blocking of all respiratory droplets, with cloth masks in some studies performing on par with surgical masks as barriers for source control.”