SOME WAYS YOU CAN GET INFECTED WITH THE CORONAVIRUS, THE VIRUS THAT CAUSES COVID-19

You Can Get Infected When the Coronavirus Gets into Body Openings Like nose, and/or mouth, and possibly eyes.  If entering through the nose and mouth, the virus can get inside throat and lungs. Virus that gets into any of these locations can cause infection.

Here Are 4 Ways That the Coronavirus Can Get into Locations Where It Can Infect You & Others:

1. Droplets which contain the virus that come out of an infected person’s mouth and/or nose when they cough, sneeze, sing, speak and/or breath and land on your bodily openings and/or you inhale them.
   • Droplets will usually not travel much beyond 12 feet away from the infected person.
   • And most will not travel more than 6 feet which is the reason for the 6-feet social distancing rules.
2. Breathing in virus that is suspended in the air.
   • The airborne virus originally may have come from one or more infected people (or possibly from a toilet that others have used and recently flushed). Once airborne, the virus is now hanging, like a cloud in the air.
   • The cloud of aerosolized virus can travel farther than 12 feet and can infect you for an unknown period of time. (According to a recent study, the coronavirus can remain infective for at least for 3 hours after the virus had been exhaled by one or more infected persons when it first became a cloud of virus that remains suspended in the air.)
   • Although the World Health Organization has not agreed that airborne spread has been unequivocally proven by research, the WHO reports that they have not ruled out this possible route of transmission. “WHO, together with the scientific community, has been actively discussing and evaluating whether SARS-CoV-2 may also spread through aerosols in the absence of aerosol generating procedures, particularly in indoor settings with poor ventilation.”
3. Direct membrane-to-membrane transmission – a.k.a. kissing an infected person.
4. It is possible that touching a surface that has the active virus on it and then touching bodily openings such as eyes, nose and/or mouth can cause infection but over a year of evidence shows that this mode of transmission is not the main way that this virus is spread.  Over a year of evidence has demonstrated that coronavirus is mainly spread person-to-person through droplets and also aerosols and not from touching surfaces.

CDC says that “Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that handling food or consuming food is associated with COVID-19.” As of April 26, 2021 there have been “…no cases of COVID-19 have been identified where infection was thought to have occurred by touching food, food packaging, or shopping bags.” But CDC still recommends that after handling packaging and before preparing food to do the 20-second soap and water handwashing (see below). And if someone in your household is infected with coronavirus, they also recommend disinfecting “high-touch” surfaces daily such as handles, kitchen countertops, faucets, light switches, and doorknobs.