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New York Times Coronavirus
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cullabine
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New York Times Coronavirus
Article in the New York Times
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PostmanBitesDog
- Posts: 1428
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New York Times Coronavirus
Here's a report from Huffington Post published today about our brothers and sisters across the pond:
HuffPo (March 26, 2020): Postal Workers Are Stressed And On The Front Lines Of The Coronavirus Pandemic
“I actually think I’m going to get the virus, it’s just a matter of time,” said one letter carrier.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/postal-w ... 6a7a269d8a
As millions of Americans are told to stay home to protect themselves and stem the spread of coronavirus, postal workers nationwide are still going to work, risking their health but remaining committed to delivering the letters, prescriptions and other mail people need.
“It’s stressful. I think about it every day,” Michael, a letter carrier, told HuffPost. (His name has been changed to avoid repercussions at work.) “You have to do the exact opposite of what authorities are asking people to do, which is stay home.”
The 42-year-old, who delivers mail in a small city in Massachusetts, is part of a workforce deemed “essential” during the coronavirus crisis, meaning that — like grocery store workers, firefighters, garbage collectors and more — he still has to show up to work every day, even as large swaths of the country have closed stores and schools, companies have mandated employees work from home, and some states have ordered people to shelter in place.
Michael’s job is the opposite of sheltering in place: He’s going from house to house to deliver mail, touching doorknobs and sharing vehicles with other coworkers. “I’m touching a steering wheel probably everyone in the office has touched this week,” he said.
While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines tell people to wash their hands frequently, Michael’s job has him on the go, so he can’t comply. He hasn’t found any hand sanitizer for sale in his town, and his supervisor said the jug they all share at work was the last they had on hand.
“I just wear rubber gloves and try not to touch my face — I don’t know what else to do,” Michael said. “I actually think I’m going to get the virus, it’s just a matter of time.”
In the U.S., the numbers of confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, are increasing every day. There were around 70,000 cases reported across every state as of Thursday, and over 1,000 deaths. So far, 65 postal workers have tested positive for coronavirus, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday. This is still a relatively low figure among a workforce of about 630,000. But as testing is ramping up nationwide and the virus continues to spread, more cases are likely to emerge.
“Sometimes I’m thankful, because I’m watching all of my friends get laid off in real time,” Michael said, noting that coronavirus-related measures have forced closures of many businesses. “But it’s this tightrope walk: Can I stay healthy and keep this job?”
A postal worker wears a mask and gloves while operating a route in the Queens borough of New York City. (Associated Press)
While research is still being done on how long the virus stays on different kinds of surfaces, when it comes to pamphlets and boxes, tests from the U.S. government and other scientists have found that the disease could be detected up to 24 hours on cardboard and linger for up to two to three days on surfaces like plastic, the Associated Press reported. (Here’s how to safely receive and open packages during the coronavirus outbreak.) The CDC website says, “There is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.”
But postal workers don’t only come into contact with mail: They’re also commuting to work every day, sharing space with coworkers, possibly interacting with people at homes they deliver to — increasing their chances of contracting the virus far beyond just handling letters.
“Naturally, our people are concerned, they’re out in the public and then they go back home and their family’s at home,” said Ronnie Stutts, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, a union representing 130,000 postal workers. Each of his carriers conducts an average of 500 to 600 deliveries a day.
“Hand sanitizer is what we need,” Stutts said. As of Wednesday, he added, they didn’t have enough to meet the needs of all their rural carrier members. The USPS has assured the union it will be distributing more hand sanitizer over the next few weeks.
“It’s been a problem, I’m not gonna say it hasn’t,” Stutts added, noting that even medical professionals fighting the virus have not gotten the gear they need. “This hit all at one time, nobody was really prepared. It’s been a little slow getting protective equipment we need.”
USPS told HuffPost that “safety of our employees is our highest priority” and the agency is “urgently working to make sure all our employees have the supplies they need to stay safe.” It has a dedicated COVID-19 response team following strategies recommended by the CDC.
Stutts repeatedly said that USPS has “really worked well with us” to try to prepare and assist workers, including having regular teleconferences with district heads to get out information for workers on how to protect themselves with social distancing, hand-washing and more.
USPS has also increased its paid leave available to workers, including an additional 80 hours of leave for “non-career” or largely part-time workers to use for childcare or if they’ve come into contact with someone with coronavirus. And full-time employees can use their sick leave — up to 13 days for some — to care for kids who are at home due to school closures. The agency also rolled out 14 days of administrative leave if employees are ordered quarantined.
Staffing has already become an issue in some areas, as more postal workers are dealing with closed schools or symptoms of illness. “It’s really starting to put a strain,” Stutts said, noting that several rural delivery routes have been affected by workers getting sick, self-quarantining or taking off for childcare. He’s hoping the postal service hires more, as more staffers may need to take leave just as deliveries are increasing, with more people ordering from home.
“There’s a lot more work,” said Joe Palau, a decades-long employee of USPS who currently works at a mail processing facility in New York City. His workplace recently had to take on additional packages from a facility in nearby Westchester, where two postal workers tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
“I’m just stressed about what could come next,” said Palau, who’s been wearing gloves and trying to wash his hands regularly. “Right now there hasn’t been a reported case in our facility, but you never know.”
Michael has also been worrying about what might happen if a wider spread hits postal workers. “I don’t know what they’re gonna do,” he said. “At some point, someone in my office will get it, and in short order, we all will, and then I don’t know who will deliver the mail.”
Michael suggested that in the meantime, in order to lessen letter carriers’ deliveries and exposure, USPS could temporarily curtail junk mail. “It is kind of disheartening to be out there delivering mail to a house getting one thing — a flyer for a car shop,” he said. “It kind of feels like you’re taking a risk for no reason.”
“The other side of that is, we deliver prescription medicine to old people who are house-bound — that feels great,” he added. “That person gets to stay home where they’re safe.”
Stutts urged anyone who wants to help postal workers to do one thing above all else: Stay away from your mail person. He acknowledged a lot of people on carriers’ routes are just being friendly, “but please stay away six feet,” he pleaded.
“The postal service is not gonna stop, that’s our mission,” Stutts said, noting that carriers deliver medications, government benefits and other necessities — and have done so through previous crises, including the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and subsequent anthrax scare. “We always come to the call to do our jobs.”
Reporter: Sarah Ruiz-Grossman
HuffPo (March 26, 2020): Postal Workers Are Stressed And On The Front Lines Of The Coronavirus Pandemic
“I actually think I’m going to get the virus, it’s just a matter of time,” said one letter carrier.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/postal-w ... 6a7a269d8a
As millions of Americans are told to stay home to protect themselves and stem the spread of coronavirus, postal workers nationwide are still going to work, risking their health but remaining committed to delivering the letters, prescriptions and other mail people need.
“It’s stressful. I think about it every day,” Michael, a letter carrier, told HuffPost. (His name has been changed to avoid repercussions at work.) “You have to do the exact opposite of what authorities are asking people to do, which is stay home.”
The 42-year-old, who delivers mail in a small city in Massachusetts, is part of a workforce deemed “essential” during the coronavirus crisis, meaning that — like grocery store workers, firefighters, garbage collectors and more — he still has to show up to work every day, even as large swaths of the country have closed stores and schools, companies have mandated employees work from home, and some states have ordered people to shelter in place.
Michael’s job is the opposite of sheltering in place: He’s going from house to house to deliver mail, touching doorknobs and sharing vehicles with other coworkers. “I’m touching a steering wheel probably everyone in the office has touched this week,” he said.
While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines tell people to wash their hands frequently, Michael’s job has him on the go, so he can’t comply. He hasn’t found any hand sanitizer for sale in his town, and his supervisor said the jug they all share at work was the last they had on hand.
“I just wear rubber gloves and try not to touch my face — I don’t know what else to do,” Michael said. “I actually think I’m going to get the virus, it’s just a matter of time.”
In the U.S., the numbers of confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, are increasing every day. There were around 70,000 cases reported across every state as of Thursday, and over 1,000 deaths. So far, 65 postal workers have tested positive for coronavirus, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday. This is still a relatively low figure among a workforce of about 630,000. But as testing is ramping up nationwide and the virus continues to spread, more cases are likely to emerge.
“Sometimes I’m thankful, because I’m watching all of my friends get laid off in real time,” Michael said, noting that coronavirus-related measures have forced closures of many businesses. “But it’s this tightrope walk: Can I stay healthy and keep this job?”
A postal worker wears a mask and gloves while operating a route in the Queens borough of New York City. (Associated Press)
While research is still being done on how long the virus stays on different kinds of surfaces, when it comes to pamphlets and boxes, tests from the U.S. government and other scientists have found that the disease could be detected up to 24 hours on cardboard and linger for up to two to three days on surfaces like plastic, the Associated Press reported. (Here’s how to safely receive and open packages during the coronavirus outbreak.) The CDC website says, “There is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.”
But postal workers don’t only come into contact with mail: They’re also commuting to work every day, sharing space with coworkers, possibly interacting with people at homes they deliver to — increasing their chances of contracting the virus far beyond just handling letters.
“Naturally, our people are concerned, they’re out in the public and then they go back home and their family’s at home,” said Ronnie Stutts, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, a union representing 130,000 postal workers. Each of his carriers conducts an average of 500 to 600 deliveries a day.
“Hand sanitizer is what we need,” Stutts said. As of Wednesday, he added, they didn’t have enough to meet the needs of all their rural carrier members. The USPS has assured the union it will be distributing more hand sanitizer over the next few weeks.
“It’s been a problem, I’m not gonna say it hasn’t,” Stutts added, noting that even medical professionals fighting the virus have not gotten the gear they need. “This hit all at one time, nobody was really prepared. It’s been a little slow getting protective equipment we need.”
USPS told HuffPost that “safety of our employees is our highest priority” and the agency is “urgently working to make sure all our employees have the supplies they need to stay safe.” It has a dedicated COVID-19 response team following strategies recommended by the CDC.
Stutts repeatedly said that USPS has “really worked well with us” to try to prepare and assist workers, including having regular teleconferences with district heads to get out information for workers on how to protect themselves with social distancing, hand-washing and more.
USPS has also increased its paid leave available to workers, including an additional 80 hours of leave for “non-career” or largely part-time workers to use for childcare or if they’ve come into contact with someone with coronavirus. And full-time employees can use their sick leave — up to 13 days for some — to care for kids who are at home due to school closures. The agency also rolled out 14 days of administrative leave if employees are ordered quarantined.
Staffing has already become an issue in some areas, as more postal workers are dealing with closed schools or symptoms of illness. “It’s really starting to put a strain,” Stutts said, noting that several rural delivery routes have been affected by workers getting sick, self-quarantining or taking off for childcare. He’s hoping the postal service hires more, as more staffers may need to take leave just as deliveries are increasing, with more people ordering from home.
“There’s a lot more work,” said Joe Palau, a decades-long employee of USPS who currently works at a mail processing facility in New York City. His workplace recently had to take on additional packages from a facility in nearby Westchester, where two postal workers tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
“I’m just stressed about what could come next,” said Palau, who’s been wearing gloves and trying to wash his hands regularly. “Right now there hasn’t been a reported case in our facility, but you never know.”
Michael has also been worrying about what might happen if a wider spread hits postal workers. “I don’t know what they’re gonna do,” he said. “At some point, someone in my office will get it, and in short order, we all will, and then I don’t know who will deliver the mail.”
Michael suggested that in the meantime, in order to lessen letter carriers’ deliveries and exposure, USPS could temporarily curtail junk mail. “It is kind of disheartening to be out there delivering mail to a house getting one thing — a flyer for a car shop,” he said. “It kind of feels like you’re taking a risk for no reason.”
“The other side of that is, we deliver prescription medicine to old people who are house-bound — that feels great,” he added. “That person gets to stay home where they’re safe.”
Stutts urged anyone who wants to help postal workers to do one thing above all else: Stay away from your mail person. He acknowledged a lot of people on carriers’ routes are just being friendly, “but please stay away six feet,” he pleaded.
“The postal service is not gonna stop, that’s our mission,” Stutts said, noting that carriers deliver medications, government benefits and other necessities — and have done so through previous crises, including the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and subsequent anthrax scare. “We always come to the call to do our jobs.”
Reporter: Sarah Ruiz-Grossman
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Last edited by PostmanBitesDog on 26 Mar 2020, 21:44, edited 1 time in total.
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PostmanBitesDog
- Posts: 1428
- Joined: 17 Feb 2019, 15:46
- Gender: Male
New York Times Coronavirus
Another interesting New York Times article:
New York Times (March 24, 2020): You’ve Got Mail. Will You Get the Coronavirus?
The practice of disinfecting mail dates back to the invention of quarantine. There’s little evidence it needs to be invoked today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/heal ... kages.html
Scientists agree that the main means by which the SARS-CoV-2 virus jumps from an infected person to its next host is by hitching a ride in the tiny droplets that are sprayed into the air with each cough or sneeze. But with deliveries now at holiday levels as locked-down Americans shop online rather than in person, the question remains: Can you catch the coronavirus from the parcels and packages your overburdened mail carrier keeps leaving at your door?
The first formal process for curbing the spread of infection by detaining travelers from an affected region until their health was proved was instituted in what is now Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 1377, against the bubonic plague. (This temporal buffer was originally 30 days, but when that proved too short, it was extended to 40 days, or quaranta giorni, from which we derive the word “quarantine.”)
Mail disinfection soon followed, as the then Republic of Venice extended and formalized the quarantine process to include cargo. Items that were considered particularly susceptible, including textiles and letters, were also subject to fumigation: dipped in or sprinkled with vinegar, then often exposed to smoke from aromatic substances, from rosemary to, in later years, chlorine. Once the items were treated, a distinctive wax seal or cancellation was usually applied to them, so the recipient would know where and when the disinfection had been carried out. (Such marks often provide the only remaining evidence of the ebb and flow of disease; some minor outbreaks of plague or typhus in remote areas of medieval Europe, for example, would have been lost to history without their postal traces.)
The diseases changed, but for centuries mail disinfection techniques remained largely the same. As recently as 1900, during a plague outbreak in Honolulu, letters were routinely disinfected by clipping off the two opposite corners of each envelope and then spreading a batch of mail out in an airtight room filled with sulfur fumes for three hours.
A representative for the U.S. Postal Service was unwilling to discuss current sanitization protocols. But the agency’s website reports that the only mail items receiving treatment are letters and parcels sent to ZIP codes beginning in 202, 203, 204 and 205, which serve federal government agencies in Washington, D.C. In a process that began shortly after the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Postal Service sends mail destined for those ZIP codes to New Jersey, where they are put on a conveyor belt and passed under a high-energy beam of ionizing radiation that kills bacteria and viruses. The letters and packages are then “aired out” for a while, before being forwarded to their destinations. The paper is left slightly faded and somewhat crispy, but sterile.
Should mail irradiation be extended beyond these exclusive ZIP codes, to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus? On CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, warned that SARS-CoV-2 could potentially be transmitted by contaminated objects. “This is a sticky virus,” he said. The structure of the coronavirus’s protective envelope helps it bond tightly to certain surfaces: skin in particular, as well as fabric and wood, but also plastic and steel.
A bank clerk disinfecting banknotes in the Suining Bank in southwest China in February. (Chinatopix, via Associated Press)
Some government agencies seem concerned that all of that circulating paper might be a potential vector. In early February, when COVID-19 was still just “the coronavirus” — and, for most Americans, still someone else’s problem — China’s central bank announced that it would quarantine the country’s cash, to prevent the disease from spreading from one person to another on money. The government collected bank notes from Hubei, the worst-hit province, and then sanitized the stacks of bills, either by baking them at a high temperature or bathing them in ultraviolet rays. The newly laundered cash was then kept in isolation for seven to 14 days before being rereleased into the banking system.
A few weeks later, the U.S. Federal Reserve began quarantining dollar bills repatriated from Asia, holding them for seven to 10 days before allowing them to re-enter the domestic financial system. Bank notes are made of cotton pulp, not wood fiber, but still: Why sanitize money and not mail?
Representatives of the big three package deliverers in the United States — U.P.S., FedEx and the Postal Service — insisted there is no need. “The C.D.C. has advised that there is a low risk of transmission on packages,” said Matthew O’Conner, a spokesman for U.P.S. FedEx, in a statement. “The guidance from the W.H.O. is that the likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low, and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, traveled, and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low.”
David Partenheimer, a spokesman for the Postal Service, noted that the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, along with the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, has “indicated that there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through the mail.”
This is because many scientists think it is quite unlikely that you can catch the coronavirus by touching a surface that has the virus on it and subsequently touching your own mouth or nose. (One review of scientific publications on the subject concluded that hand washing seems to cut the risk of respiratory infection by a mere 16 percent — but added that the studies examined were of poor quality and more research was urgently needed.)
The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment — Germany’s equivalent of the F.D.A. — advises that while the virus could, theoretically, be transmitted through this kind of “smear” infection, as opposed to the standard “droplet” infection, there have been no known cases in which individuals have caught the coronavirus by touching a contaminated surface and then transferring the virus to their mouth or nose. Then again, contact transmission is notoriously difficult to study and document.
A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week shed more light on the subject. A group of researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the C.D.C., Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles, misted virus particles into a rotating drum and studied how long the floating particles survived on various surfaces. They found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus survived for up to 24 hours on cardboard — three times longer than its cousin, the original SARS.
“In that light, you might expect the virus to remain viable for hours but probably not days on mail,” said James Lloyd-Smith, one of the study’s authors. “But there are important caveats.”
Among these: The study specifically looked at aerosolized virus particles, rather than the fine droplets that infected people emit with each cough or sneeze. The line between aerosols and droplets is fuzzy, but, broadly, droplets are bigger and settle more quickly, while aerosols are smaller and float for longer.
“Little is known about the rate at which infected people generate such aerosolized viruses,” Dr. Lloyd-Smith said, although some medical procedures — including intubation to assist with breathing — are known to create aerosols. In addition, the experiment was designed to simulate indoor air; viruses like this one are expected to be stable for longer at lower temperatures and lower humidity.
In an experiment that might better mimic the effect of sneezing on a letter, researchers from Hong Kong University pipetted droplets of SARS-CoV-2 onto various surfaces. Their results, which have not yet been peer reviewed and do not include details on temperature and humidity conditions, found no infectious virus left on paper after three hours — although, alarmingly, a significant level could be detected on the outer layer of a surgical mask after seven days.
“The bottom line is that there is some hypothetical risk of viable viruses surviving on mail,” Dr. Lloyd-Smith said. “But given the time periods involved, this seems like a pretty minimal risk to the general public.”
Ben Chapman, a food safety specialist at North Carolina State University who studies the interaction of pathogens and surfaces, agreed that although the virus can persist on packages, these have not been identified as a risk factor for transmission. Nonetheless, he said, “I’d just wash my hands after handling,” rather than spray with Lysol or wipe with bleach. “I want to preserve the good sanitizers for risky things, and hand washing works just as well as spraying.”
For the delivery workers pulling 12-hour shifts to keep up with demand, and struggling to access the sanitizing supplies and hand-washing facilities they need, the situation is potentially riskier. “I would be more worried about the mail sorters and mail carriers, who are exposed to many more pieces of mail,” Dr. Lloyd-Smith said.
Delivery is deemed an “essential function” by the Department of Homeland Security, and the volume of packages is expected only to increase as more Americans are required to shelter in place. Irradiating all mail is both overkill and likely impossible, given the volumes in question and the resources required. But making sure that the people who are keeping mail moving during this pandemic are protected also seems essential, not to mention ethical.
“The safety and well-being of U.S. Postal Service employees and customers is our highest priority,” said Mr. Partenheimer, who added that the agency is closely monitoring the situation to implement C.D.C. and public health department advice.
Reporter: Nicola Twilley
New York Times (March 24, 2020): You’ve Got Mail. Will You Get the Coronavirus?
The practice of disinfecting mail dates back to the invention of quarantine. There’s little evidence it needs to be invoked today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/heal ... kages.html
Scientists agree that the main means by which the SARS-CoV-2 virus jumps from an infected person to its next host is by hitching a ride in the tiny droplets that are sprayed into the air with each cough or sneeze. But with deliveries now at holiday levels as locked-down Americans shop online rather than in person, the question remains: Can you catch the coronavirus from the parcels and packages your overburdened mail carrier keeps leaving at your door?
The first formal process for curbing the spread of infection by detaining travelers from an affected region until their health was proved was instituted in what is now Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 1377, against the bubonic plague. (This temporal buffer was originally 30 days, but when that proved too short, it was extended to 40 days, or quaranta giorni, from which we derive the word “quarantine.”)
Mail disinfection soon followed, as the then Republic of Venice extended and formalized the quarantine process to include cargo. Items that were considered particularly susceptible, including textiles and letters, were also subject to fumigation: dipped in or sprinkled with vinegar, then often exposed to smoke from aromatic substances, from rosemary to, in later years, chlorine. Once the items were treated, a distinctive wax seal or cancellation was usually applied to them, so the recipient would know where and when the disinfection had been carried out. (Such marks often provide the only remaining evidence of the ebb and flow of disease; some minor outbreaks of plague or typhus in remote areas of medieval Europe, for example, would have been lost to history without their postal traces.)
The diseases changed, but for centuries mail disinfection techniques remained largely the same. As recently as 1900, during a plague outbreak in Honolulu, letters were routinely disinfected by clipping off the two opposite corners of each envelope and then spreading a batch of mail out in an airtight room filled with sulfur fumes for three hours.
A representative for the U.S. Postal Service was unwilling to discuss current sanitization protocols. But the agency’s website reports that the only mail items receiving treatment are letters and parcels sent to ZIP codes beginning in 202, 203, 204 and 205, which serve federal government agencies in Washington, D.C. In a process that began shortly after the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Postal Service sends mail destined for those ZIP codes to New Jersey, where they are put on a conveyor belt and passed under a high-energy beam of ionizing radiation that kills bacteria and viruses. The letters and packages are then “aired out” for a while, before being forwarded to their destinations. The paper is left slightly faded and somewhat crispy, but sterile.
Should mail irradiation be extended beyond these exclusive ZIP codes, to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus? On CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, warned that SARS-CoV-2 could potentially be transmitted by contaminated objects. “This is a sticky virus,” he said. The structure of the coronavirus’s protective envelope helps it bond tightly to certain surfaces: skin in particular, as well as fabric and wood, but also plastic and steel.
A bank clerk disinfecting banknotes in the Suining Bank in southwest China in February. (Chinatopix, via Associated Press)
Some government agencies seem concerned that all of that circulating paper might be a potential vector. In early February, when COVID-19 was still just “the coronavirus” — and, for most Americans, still someone else’s problem — China’s central bank announced that it would quarantine the country’s cash, to prevent the disease from spreading from one person to another on money. The government collected bank notes from Hubei, the worst-hit province, and then sanitized the stacks of bills, either by baking them at a high temperature or bathing them in ultraviolet rays. The newly laundered cash was then kept in isolation for seven to 14 days before being rereleased into the banking system.
A few weeks later, the U.S. Federal Reserve began quarantining dollar bills repatriated from Asia, holding them for seven to 10 days before allowing them to re-enter the domestic financial system. Bank notes are made of cotton pulp, not wood fiber, but still: Why sanitize money and not mail?
Representatives of the big three package deliverers in the United States — U.P.S., FedEx and the Postal Service — insisted there is no need. “The C.D.C. has advised that there is a low risk of transmission on packages,” said Matthew O’Conner, a spokesman for U.P.S. FedEx, in a statement. “The guidance from the W.H.O. is that the likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low, and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, traveled, and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low.”
David Partenheimer, a spokesman for the Postal Service, noted that the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, along with the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, has “indicated that there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through the mail.”
This is because many scientists think it is quite unlikely that you can catch the coronavirus by touching a surface that has the virus on it and subsequently touching your own mouth or nose. (One review of scientific publications on the subject concluded that hand washing seems to cut the risk of respiratory infection by a mere 16 percent — but added that the studies examined were of poor quality and more research was urgently needed.)
The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment — Germany’s equivalent of the F.D.A. — advises that while the virus could, theoretically, be transmitted through this kind of “smear” infection, as opposed to the standard “droplet” infection, there have been no known cases in which individuals have caught the coronavirus by touching a contaminated surface and then transferring the virus to their mouth or nose. Then again, contact transmission is notoriously difficult to study and document.
A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week shed more light on the subject. A group of researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the C.D.C., Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles, misted virus particles into a rotating drum and studied how long the floating particles survived on various surfaces. They found that the SARS-CoV-2 virus survived for up to 24 hours on cardboard — three times longer than its cousin, the original SARS.
“In that light, you might expect the virus to remain viable for hours but probably not days on mail,” said James Lloyd-Smith, one of the study’s authors. “But there are important caveats.”
Among these: The study specifically looked at aerosolized virus particles, rather than the fine droplets that infected people emit with each cough or sneeze. The line between aerosols and droplets is fuzzy, but, broadly, droplets are bigger and settle more quickly, while aerosols are smaller and float for longer.
“Little is known about the rate at which infected people generate such aerosolized viruses,” Dr. Lloyd-Smith said, although some medical procedures — including intubation to assist with breathing — are known to create aerosols. In addition, the experiment was designed to simulate indoor air; viruses like this one are expected to be stable for longer at lower temperatures and lower humidity.
In an experiment that might better mimic the effect of sneezing on a letter, researchers from Hong Kong University pipetted droplets of SARS-CoV-2 onto various surfaces. Their results, which have not yet been peer reviewed and do not include details on temperature and humidity conditions, found no infectious virus left on paper after three hours — although, alarmingly, a significant level could be detected on the outer layer of a surgical mask after seven days.
“The bottom line is that there is some hypothetical risk of viable viruses surviving on mail,” Dr. Lloyd-Smith said. “But given the time periods involved, this seems like a pretty minimal risk to the general public.”
Ben Chapman, a food safety specialist at North Carolina State University who studies the interaction of pathogens and surfaces, agreed that although the virus can persist on packages, these have not been identified as a risk factor for transmission. Nonetheless, he said, “I’d just wash my hands after handling,” rather than spray with Lysol or wipe with bleach. “I want to preserve the good sanitizers for risky things, and hand washing works just as well as spraying.”
For the delivery workers pulling 12-hour shifts to keep up with demand, and struggling to access the sanitizing supplies and hand-washing facilities they need, the situation is potentially riskier. “I would be more worried about the mail sorters and mail carriers, who are exposed to many more pieces of mail,” Dr. Lloyd-Smith said.
Delivery is deemed an “essential function” by the Department of Homeland Security, and the volume of packages is expected only to increase as more Americans are required to shelter in place. Irradiating all mail is both overkill and likely impossible, given the volumes in question and the resources required. But making sure that the people who are keeping mail moving during this pandemic are protected also seems essential, not to mention ethical.
“The safety and well-being of U.S. Postal Service employees and customers is our highest priority,” said Mr. Partenheimer, who added that the agency is closely monitoring the situation to implement C.D.C. and public health department advice.
Reporter: Nicola Twilley
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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POSTMAN
- SITE ADMINISTRATOR
- Posts: 32588
- Joined: 07 Aug 2006, 03:19
- Gender: Male
New York Times Coronavirus
The Americans are f****d, I feel sorry for them, there was never an American dream for the little people.
What a way to run a country.
What a way to run a country.
I Wrote-During Covid-Which is still relevant now
It's good to get these types of threads, the ridiculous my manager said bollox, so we can reassure ourselves that while the world is falling apart, Royal Mail managers are still being the low-life C***S they have always been.
My BFF Clash
The daily grind of having to argue your case with an intellectual pigmy of a line manager is physically and emotionally draining.
It's good to get these types of threads, the ridiculous my manager said bollox, so we can reassure ourselves that while the world is falling apart, Royal Mail managers are still being the low-life C***S they have always been.
My BFF Clash
The daily grind of having to argue your case with an intellectual pigmy of a line manager is physically and emotionally draining.
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PostmanBitesDog
- Posts: 1428
- Joined: 17 Feb 2019, 15:46
- Gender: Male
New York Times Coronavirus
They are. And with a president so inept, xenophobic ("China virus") and thin-skinned when criticized for his delays, missteps and politicizing the crisis, it's no wonder people around the world are shaking their heads at what's going on inside the world's most powerful nation.POSTMAN wrote:The Americans are f****d, I feel sorry for them, there was never an American dream for the little people.
What a way to run a country.
The United States now has the highest number of COVID-19 cases, overtaking Italy and China. And the effects of a broken healthcare system, along with the Trump administration's rollback of the C.D.C staffing and funding soon after taking over from the Obama administration, will only compound more failures in this current crisis.
Even the state governors are fed up with the federal government's handling of the crisis. This is Rachel Maddow on Thursday discussing the ridiculous situation of states competing against each other for personal protective equipment:
People might point out that it's ironic how Trump's approval has risen during this predicament, but they must keep in mind that no matter who the president is, when a tragedy strikes the citizens look to their leader to seek solace and strength. George W. Bush wasn't popular soon after he squeaked by with a win against Al Gore in 2000. Then came 9/11 and his low approval rating turned and roared back up. Same with Hurricane Katrina until the FEMA mismanagement under his watch ([FEMA Director Michael Brown] "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.") saw his approval rating sink to the basement.
Jimmy Carter's approval rating rose during the start of the Iran hostage crisis, but because the crisis dragged on his rating fell so much he lost his reelection chances to Ronald Reagan.
One political official who's been impressive with his morale, leadership and adamantine - especially against the clown show in the White House - is New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. Every essential and front line worker the world over should listen to him.
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PostmanBitesDog
- Posts: 1428
- Joined: 17 Feb 2019, 15:46
- Gender: Male
New York Times Coronavirus
More so now than before. By far the highest number of confirmed cases in the world. And second highest number of deaths, just behind Italy.POSTMAN wrote:The Americans are f****d
That list above is from today, and notice the huge spike in deaths here in the United Kingdom. Third after the U.S. and France.
The world total of COVID-19 deaths has now surpassed 100,000.
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