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VERIFY: Your mail is 'most likely' safe from COVID-19

Many of our viewers have been asking us whether their mail is safe from transmitting COVID-19. The short answer? Most likely.

We know you can get coronavirus from someone who has it, by coming in contact with their droplets from sneezing, coughing, speaking.

Person to person.

But almost every day we bring mail into our homes..

The question is, are we also bringing in coronavirus?

Can it spread person - to mailbox - to person?

We asked Doug Schultz from the Minnesota Department of Health to verify.

"When the virus lands on a surface, and it stays there for a while, what's left is called a fomite," Schultz said. "And we don't have any evidence that fomites are a means of transmission of this virus."

"We know that it lasts longer on hard surfaces. That's why we tell people to wipe down metal handles, door handles, that sort of thing."

Schultz said the virus doesn't last as long on porous surfaces or soft surfaces, like cloth or paper.

"Also between the time that someone could have put their droplets on a piece of paper, piece of mail, and the time it actually goes through the system, the virus is most likely going to die in that time."

Schultz says mail is low risk even for the mail carriers. But with any concern over touching mailboxes, people's railings, they have protective measures they can use.

"They can wear gloves," Schultz said. "They can use hand sanitizers in their trucks and they should wash their hands before they eat and that sort of thing."

So we can verify your mail is most likely safe from coronavirus, but wash your hands just in case.

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