Disinfecting surfaces to prevent COVID-19 often all for show, CDC advises – CTV
April 19, 2021
The risk of surface transmission of COVID-19 is low, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. Far more important is airborne transmission — and people who obsessively disinfect surfaces may be doing more harm than good.
“CDC determined that the risk of surface transmission is low, and secondary to the primary routes of virus transmission through direct contact droplets and aerosols,” Vincent Hill, Chief of the Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch, said on a CDC-sponsored telephone briefing.
Hill said the risk of transmission from touching a surface, while small, is elevated indoors. Outdoors, the sun and other factors can destroy viruses, Hill said.
The virus dies “rapidly” on porous surfaces but can persist longer on hard, indoor surfaces.
Research also suggested that surface transmission was more likely in the first 24 hours after a person is infected, and that households where one person had COVID-19 did have lower transmission rates when the household cleaned and disinfected surfaces.
