Can you get infected from an Ebay Parcel?

EDV

EDV

Well-known member
I know this question has been raised before ( mostly outside of DVXuser ) but it's worth asking again. The consensus at the moment seems to be that no, you can not ( apparently the virus can only survive on surfaces for a short time, although "how long" it's not yet clear and depends on a number of factors )
Without getting political, several countries ( Spain, Italy and a few others ) have reported "traces of COVID-19" on testing kits donated/sold by China, as well as masks. I think some testing kits were confirmed to be "contaminated" with the virus, not just have faint traces. This to me casts some doubt on the belief that the virus can not survive for long on surfaces. To make matters worse, some "strains" of the virus seem to behave differently ( whether this is due to mutations ,geography, climate I don't know ), ie. more aggressively and deadly in some regions, affecting people of all ages, not just the elderly ( I say this because here in Australia ONLY the elderly have died from the virus ) I'd hate to be the one to discover a more aggressive and contagious strain of the virus can be introduced into a relatively unaffected environment through an imported parcel.
 
Unlikely. And even if traces are detected, that does not mean it is viable and capable of infecting you. Anything I order from China usually takes weeks to get here in Canada, although I imagine Australia gets packages sooner. Just to be safe, I've been wiping down every package with a Clorox wipe. And if I don't need it urgently, let it sit for a few days before handling it, in case the mail carrier contaminated it.
 
Possible, yes, likely no.

I mean, your UPS driver could contaminate it immediately before delivery. They *think* COVID can live on cardboard for 24 hours. Nuance there is what strain of COVID, what outdoor temp, what humidity. I think those tests were down around 65 F and 40% humidity but I don't remember... point is if the outdoor temp is 50 F results may vary.

As McGee said, leave it out for a couple days, open package, wipe down contents if possible. And as also said, traces don't necessarily mean effective virus that can actually infect you. As all such things, it operates on a half life. I think for cardboard the amount of virus halves every 4 hours, for plastic and glass its longer.

All in all, its unlikely that infectious amounts of disease are common on packages. If it was common, we'd see different patterns of COVID spread than we are. That said I am still being extra cautious myself.
 
It's unlikely to survive on most surfaces for more than 72 hours but test kits are sealed and contain liquid, so then it depends on the surrounding temperature. The cooler the tempts are, the longer virus can be sustained. The problem with the test kits is that they are working with exposed membranes (nostrils, mouth) and that's a terrain suitable for multiplication. But a general hand wash would usually kill what minute traces may be found on carton, plastic or metal.
 
Nobody knows for certain, and the Chinese, who have been researching this virus in labs in Wuhan for years, aren't sharing much information.

General protocol is to give things a wipe down and/or expose to sunlight for 1-2 days... if you dive right in, wipe down the contents and wash your hands afterwards, and dispose of any packaging.
 
Had a small package(padded envelope) come yesterday. I just happened to be outside when the UPS driver pulled up. He handed it to me, I went inside, opened it, dumped out the contents, tossed the packaging and washed my hands. It was a ground shipment, so it had been probably several days since a person had handled the inner contents, so I felt reasonably safe with it.
 
I bought a watch from China off eBay in mid-February and it arrived in mid-March. I opened the packaging outside and slid the watch into a plastic container, then tossed the original packaging and washed up. The watch was wrapped in several layers of plastic bubblewrap and had been that way for more than a month at that point, so I figured I was safe by now.
 
I am shocked Mitch. A watch? You are so old-school. I thought we all got the time of day from our phones these days. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Worse yet, Mitch didn't buy it from a guy standing on the street on Broadway.

The first time I went to NY on business I had 3 goals: Get ripped off by a cabbie, buy a fake Rolex watch on the street, get a pastrami sandwich at Katz's. I'd swear the cabbie took me through New Jersey on the way to midtown; check. Within 10 minutes of stepping out of my hotel that very night, I got a fake Rolex watch that stopped working the next day;check. The next day, I was in pastrami heaven at Katz's; check. Life is good.
 
Batutta said:
Unlikely. And even if traces are detected, that does not mean it is viable and capable of infecting you. Anything I order from China usually takes weeks to get here in Canada, although I imagine Australia gets packages sooner. Just to be safe, I've been wiping down every package with a Clorox wipe. And if I don't need it urgently, let it sit for a few days before handling it, in case the mail carrier contaminated it.
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This. Detectable doesn't mean you can get infected by it.

And like another said, you're more likely to catch an infection from your postie delivering it than from China weeks and weeks ago.

If you're truly paranoid, just leave it in your garage for a couple more weeks before opening it up!
 
Just to worry people China has now contained the outbreak and they are well past the worst but the USA is on the way in. Your package is far more likely to be contaminated AFTER landing in the US than before it gets to the US. If it has come by boat the virus is not going to have survived. By air depends if it was in a presurised hold or not.
 
markfpv said:
I am shocked Mitch. A watch? You are so old-school. I thought we all got the time of day from our phones these days. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
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Guy’s gotta have style. Besides, I want to check the time without having to dig in my pocket for my phone, thank you. A watch is the only jewelry I wear other than my wedding ring and glasses. We’re all gear heads here — who doesn’t like elegant bits of metal and glass?

Paul, I did the fake Rolex thing when I was around 12. I know how to get around as well as any hack so they won’t cheat me. But with the virus it’s been months since I’ve been to Katz’s and I’m jonesing.
 
Mitch Gross said:
I want to check the time without having to dig in my pocket for my phone, thank you.
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I'm with Mitch, here, fellow watch wearer. It could take 10 seconds to take a phone out, look at the time, and put that back in. That's not including the high likelihood that you'll end up wasting time looking at other stuff once the phone is out. Now multiply that by doing so 12 times per day, that's two minutes per day, times 365 days per year, times 70 years of time viewing life, that's 51,100 minutes, 851 hours. Now imagine you make $100 per hour at your freelance job, so in terms of time being money, you're spending $85,100 to use your phone to view time. With a watch, let's say it's two seconds to view it, so one fifth of the time it takes to pull out, view a phone, and put it back, so $17,020. $85,100 - $17,020 = $68,080. So, you're saving $68,080 by using a watch instead of a cell phone. And that's why Rolexes are such an expensive investment.
 
Yep. Just looking at the utility aspect of it, especially in warmer months with no long sleeves, a watch is so much faster. I’ve never timed it out, but I’d say it’s probably less than two seconds, depending on how far you have to move your arm. And you can a lot more stealthily check the time, too.

Not a big jewelry guy, but I do like watches. My daily wear is a mechanical Omega Seamaster Pro Diver Cronograph that I’ve had for probably 10 years. It needs to go in for a “tune-up”(actually several years past due), but I just don’t want to give it up for the possible few months to send it back to Switzerland. And now is definitely not the time to ship something off for service.
 
I went into a Rolex store at the mall once. I was high rolling at the time, ready to upgrade from my $40 watch to a top notch $200 watch. I did not find a $200 watch at the Rolex store that was to my liking.

To this day I still sport my $40 Timex Ironman watch. Have had it and it’s replacements probably since I was 10, and some other models before that since around five. Actually, moving on from the Rolex store, I was never able to find a nice looking digital watch. All of the fancy ones seem to be analog, and having worn digital since I was five, I don’t like reading analog as well as the limitations of it such as often lacking a separate timer function which I sometimes use, and often not being waterproof. I leave my watch on 24/7/365, which is only possible when waterproof. But mostly digital is just about how I read time; I just feel a digital readout is easier, quicker, and more precise.

The good news is, when I go on dates with my $40 watch, I don’t have to worry about gold diggers. The bad news is, I don’t get the gold diggers.
 
I've been working on risk scenarios for the past year or so, so I'll play.

Although the risk is low the potential impact is high (death), therefore it is a risk you should consider mitigating through disinfecting your incoming packages.

The low risk scenarios include things like delivery driver or loader sneezing or coughing on your shipment. Multiply by probability of viable viral material at time of shipment receipt which is a function of composition of the droplets deposited (might the viral material be encapsulated in some manner) and the package wrapping material (paper/cardboard, tyvek, plastic, etc.) There are associated factors that might determine whether a sick employee may be handling your package, such as the employer's sick leave policies and procedures, so maybe your Amazon delivered packages have a higher risk than UPS delivered packages if UPS has more stringent P&P than Amazon.
 
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