Wondering if the postal service is sanitizing packages coming into the country.

[zackymilly]

I read that the virus can live for up to 9 days on hard surfaces.
I just received several packages at our company from Italy, India and China, not concerned about where they came from.
I wasn't busy, so I delivered them to the receiving party.
So then I see them pull out a bottle of IPA and start spraying the packages down before opening them.
No one told me!
I googled to see if the USPS was disinfecting packages coming into the country, and all I found was info on USPS employees contracting the virus. Argggh!

[rooboy]

1. I doubt it.

I work for the Australian postal service and we are delivering packages without any treatment... China is our biggest international trading partner and I would typically handle about 80-100 packages per day.

As a rule of thumb, the virus does not survive for long on porous surfaces and the mail itself is not considered hazardous.

You will also find that many Chinese companies have ceased production and shipping of goods, so parcels are not coming out of infected areas at the same rate as before.

[zackymilly]

4. Thank you for this. n/t

[Mike 03]

2. What Dr. Fauci said last night on the CNN town hall

I've been concerned about this too.

He said we shouldn't worry too much about the mail or packages because the virus doesn't live that long on paper and "by the time it gets to you it's" probably not an issue. He said, even if there is some virus on the package it is likely to be so degraded (I can't remember the exact phrase he used) that it's no longer communicable.

He did mention that it might be wise to wipe down objects inside the box but he didn't make it sound like a priority.

I'm leaving "non urgent" mail and packages to sit for a couple of days (I'll carefully open the packages, remove wrappings and set the items out and wash my hands). I'll probably wipe down anything made of plastic (I order a lot of nutritional supplements that come in plastic bottles) but not worry about things wrapped in paper boxes. I'll cut the mail open on the side instead of just ripping it open with my fingers.

But there's something he didn't address, which is if your postal delivery person is infected, because then the source and time is much closer to when it's delivered. We've already had cases (or one case) of a USPS worker being infected.

[dalton99a]

3. From NIH-CDC-Princeton-UCLA study that just came out:

We found that viable virus could be detected in aerosols up to 3 hours post aerosolization, up to 4 hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to 2-3 days on plastic and stainless steel. HCoV-19 and SARS-CoV-1 exhibited similar half-lives in aerosols, with median estimates around 2.7 hours. Both viruses show relatively long viability on stainless steel and polypropylene compared to copper or cardboard: the median half-life estimate for HCoV-19 is around 13 hours on steel and around 16 hours on polypropylene.

[zackymilly]

5. Thanks. Good to know. These packages were wrapped in plastic. n/t