Grifman wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:14 pmOk, but help me make sense of this. If someone can cough or sneeze on me or I can pick it up from touching something that someone else has touched, then why not food? Someone is preparing it, will touch it, can cough or sneeze on it. How can it be safe? Why is food any different than any other object out there that we should avoid touching? I'd love to continue to support some local favorites of mine but I'm not sure how safe. Take out may be "safer" because I'm not in a room with with a bunch of infected strangers but I'm not sure how it's "safe". Does he explain it anywhere and can you provide his quote/explanation here?
Yes, it's the method of transmission. Without putting everyone to sleep, there are different ways bacteria/viruses/parasites get from the host into a new host. The virus (based on what we know right now) is seemingly most likely transmitted through droplets - tiny globs of saliva/mucous that are ejected from hosts nose and/or mouth when they cough or sneeze. Those tiny globs then need to come into contact with your eyes or nose and/or you're breathing in through your mouth and you inhale them. The mucosal membranes of your throat and stomach are more protected.
So basically, here are the scenarios:
* If someone is making you a burger and they cough/sneeze into it, then cook it, the virus is killed (no risk) - but still gross.
*If someone is making you a burger, they cook it, sneeze in their hand, pick up the burger and hand it to you, and then you eat it (extremely low risk). When you eat the burger and ingest the virus it is (based on current knowledge) inactivated by stomach acids and destroyed.
*Someone makes you a burger, they cook it, place it inside a container, sneeze on their hand and then touch the outside of the container and hand it to you; your hand touches that container / package surface, then you rub your eye (riskier, unknown level). This last scenario is no different than touching a doorknob or a handrail - it's just a non-food surface (packaging/container) that has been contaminated (in my world, we call these fomites) and you've now spread those droplets from that surface to your body.
In years to come there will be studies to figure all this out. We're not there yet. So best practices would say if you're really concerned, washing your hands after opening all the packages would be safest but (so far) risk seems low as we don't believe (yet) that cardboard, plastic or Styrofoam containers are likely surfaces that can transmit this virus; that may change.
tl;dr the risk for disease transmission is highest through the air (short distances); being sneezed on, being coughed on is to be avoided. Being in close proximity to people coughing and sneezing? Also should be avoided. Making sure to wash your hands when you're out and about, then back in a safe place and/or you're caring for someone is paramount.
This is also why there's been a call for greater sanitizing of surfaces. To deal with those tiny droplets that have collected on incidental surfaces when people cough or sneeze without covering. Here, we're trying to minimize risk that someone touches that surface, picks up viral droplets and then ends up touching their face.
