In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, while families around the world are being forced to quarantine, raising a lot of questions when it comes to normal ways of living, one thing that is not changing in a few countries is the postal service. The U.S., Australia, Germany and the U.K. are all places that will continue to deliver mail during the crisis.
Despite the fact that 40 USPS employees tested positive for COVID-19, people in the U.S. will still be able to receive their mail, however, one question remains: Can a person contract the coronavirus from mail? The answer is it’s not likely. According to Weforum.org, the Center for Disease Control states, “In general, 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.”
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The World Health Organization also backs that statement up saying, “The likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, travelled and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low.”
The survival time on a cardboard package or piece of mail for SARS-CoV-2 may be around 24 hours, but one could still consider handling each piece of mail with gloves as precautionary. While the mail be up and running in these parts of the world, other parts are scaling back to help keep workers and customers safe just in case. In France, 1 in 10 branches are operating and their deliveries have been downsized to three days a week. Spain is only allowing counter interaction with customers during the morning time only Monday through Friday, and German, Dutch and Australian postal services, along with UPS, are voiding the signature process in package deliveries as a way to help reduce the spread.
Because of the change in schedule for many companies who deliver and are still operating during quarantine, companies like Amazon are having to scale back their delivery services, like 2-day shipping to now 1-month on all non-essential items. The company spoke out about putting items like household cleaning products, baby formula and beauty products at the top of their list throughout the month of March and part of April as an attempt to provide their customers with what they need during this crucial time. This comes as a result of stores and companies seeing Christmas shopping level numbers in online purchases.
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