Clearly this applies to anyone but this is directed at cat owners buying online during the pandemic. I buy cat food from Amazon for instance and during Covid-19 it is almost the defacto norm to buy online. Millions of people are receiving millions of packages from Amazon and other delivery companies. Many cat guardians buy stuff online nowadays. Amazon is flooded with orders. The world has radically changed.
Covid-19 livespan on cardboard
The Covid-19 virus lives for up to 24 hours on cardboard according to America’s National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH is one of the world’s foremost medical research centers. It is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health. The virus lives on harder surfaces such as plastic and steel for up to three days.
Amazon Prime often delivers within 24 hours. I think the best protocol comes from a careful person on Reddit.com:
My paranoid self brings them in, scrubs my hands, then I’ll open them the next day. No disinfection needed.
I would add that the package should be placed somewhere safe from other residence in the home. And of course stand 6 feet away from the delivery person if and when they hand you the package. I’d suggest that they should leave it on the ground rather than hand it to you.
Dr. Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, associate physician specializing in infectious disease at Brigham and Women’s Hospital said that the virus on cardboard is not a important source of infection. But if you want to be careful you should take care 🙂 . He does not follow any specific protocol but his family does.
SOME MORE ON COVID-19:
