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Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

cdc.gov

141–146 of 146 posts

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#141
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sanitize the items in the garage, as i fill a sanitized crate, then my hands, then lift them into the house. Its quick and easy, it also allows me to reduce contact with the driver. To be honest i massively underestimated how often i touch some of these items in the first few days, coffee jars alone get touched 40+ times, jam and butter 12+, bread 18+, diluting squash 14+. even if i wash my hands after stowing away…

I assume these numbers are for the lifetime of the product. Perhaps a more reasonable assumption would be to only consider touches within the first 3 days, since the surface contamination is essentially non-viable past that point.

Those number are for the first 3 days. As i said i do not live alone.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#142
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population density absolutely matters for airborne infectious disease spread.

The point being made is that it’s local density that matters not overall density.

Overall is relevant when representing the performance of a continent.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#143
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume these numbers are for the lifetime of the product. Perhaps a more reasonable assumption would be to only consider touches within the first 3 days, since the surface contamination is essentially non-viable past that point.

Those number are for the first 3 days. As i said i do not live alone.

In that case you'd really want to consider exposure for each person, rather than as a collective household.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#145
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you touch a parcel a second time then the first time doesn't count to anything. It's 1/10k again. It's like with a lottery: you can buy a coupon every day for years and win nothing, because every draw resets your chances.

48 million to one lottery odds, running everyday I'd expect to win once in the next 131,506 years (48m/356). -this is why you don't win for 'years'. I'd also expect one winner for every 48 million players in a day. Now a 1/10k taken twice is 2/10k, so taken 14 thousand times it is 14k/10k. Okay so this isn't technically how you add statistics, but its close enough to see the utility in washing items.

The are lotteries with bigger chances, but in all of them some numbers will be repeated over the years, and yours may never occur. You would have to use all possible combination for one draw to be sure. That's why it's not unusual to have draws without winner, sometimes a few in a row.

It's a flawed analogy, I admit, but with the parcel you would have to palpate its entire surface and lick the finger after every touch to infect yourself. Just touching it for the second time doesn't double the chance of infection. You may touch the same uncontaminated part you'd touched already (crossing the same numbers twice), the number of virus particles you've moved might not be enough to infect you, that you might have washed your hands in between the touches, and so on... Obviously, the more you "interact" with an item the chances grow, but certainly not as fast as you suggest. Add a time limit to all of that, and the fact that for every next item it's all back to 1/10k (second draw) - practically there's no way this number will ever grow over 1/1.

Excuse the non-fact-checked argument as I can't find a link now but I recently read that couriers and mailmen actually get ill less often than factory workers (and most of them caught the virus via airborne transmission). I don't mind if you wash everything you bring home from outside, but I don't see point in that, and certainly I wouldn't recommend that to anyone. It's wiser to focus on preventing airborne transmission than to waste time and efforts on avoiding the least probable risk.

Re: Contaminated surface has under 1 in 10k chance of causing an infection

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair question but at some degree of bad faith flagging and moving on is more effective.

Probably true. The challenge (for me, at least) is discerning bad faith from other, more correctable issues in a conversation.

As I speak to someone with a recently created account the irony is palpable but people who are overt trolls or who make a habit of speaking in bad faith are liable to be banned eventually instead of accruing a longer history and karma.

If the account has little karma or comment history and appears to be behaving badly its more likely to be a problem child.

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