New Evidence - Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2

sirchewey · Post by **sirchewey** » 21 Mar 2020, 00:24

I've been on holiday this week and maybe out of the loop but RM's current stance on the surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 is that there is no need to worry about the contamination of parcels through our network. A scientific article published in the New England Journal of Medicine on the 17th March 2020 presents a somewhat different picture.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973

The evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 remains viable on plastics for up to 72 hours and cardboard for around 24 hours. Would it not be wise to either quarantine parcels and mail for specific timeframes or disinfect them prior to entering the network to ensure the safeguarding of our colleagues and customers? By neglecting to act on this evidence we could be further spreading the virus to both our employees and our customers and considering how vast and fast our network is, you would think they (RM+CWU+Gov) would be doing something more to ensure we are doing all we can.

blobneb · Post by **blobneb** » 21 Mar 2020, 00:34

Good luck convincing anyone on here. They all want to start early and lapse without hand sanitiser so that they can earn 20% more than they would if they were at home and safe. Current PHE guidance is outdated and RM knows it, they're just not going to be the ones to blow the whistle, and neither are the workers, by the look of it.

sirchewey · Post by **sirchewey** » 21 Mar 2020, 00:53

Maybe taking these precautions is too obvious. Surely providing a delayed full service is better than providing half a service with half the staff?! I may be wrong but with further measures tackling this pandemic, RM needs to up their game too. I've emailed CWU with this but it will probably get lost in the other 1000 that they're probably receiving atm.