You have a better chance catching it at McDonald's or shopping at the market for some prime beef.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ail-from-china
It's not going to be transported on a box," Dr. Michael Ison, an infectious disease specialist at Northwestern University, says of your chances of contracting the novel coronavirus from packages shipped from China.
Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images
In an era of online shopping and global shipping, some NPR listeners have written to us with this question: Am I at risk of catching the new coronavirus from a package I receive from China?
Almost certainly no, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, 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," the
CDC concludes in its Q&A.
Infectious disease specialists we spoke with were even more definitive.
"It's not going to be transported on a box," says Dr.
Michael Ison of Northwestern University, who studies viral infections among transplant patients, who have weakened immune systems.
Coronaviruses are thought to mainly spread from person to person via respiratory droplets, researchers say. And, so far, the novel coronavirus seems to have spread only among people who were in close personal contact.
While there's still a lot unknown about this particular coronavirus, experts have a sense of what to expect, based on experience with previous strains that have led to outbreaks of serious illness, such as SARS and MERS.
"There is no evidence from any previous outbreak that anyone has ever gotten infected from a package,"
Elizabeth McGraw, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University, tells NPR.