Is it safe? UNC infectious disease expert offers advice on avoiding coronavirus
If you’re trying to avoid contracting coronavirus, you should focus on your interactions with other people and worry less about what you touch, according to an infectious disease specialist at UNC Hospitals.
Dr. Emily Sickbert-Bennett, director of Infection Prevention, said contaminated objects, such as door handles or a piece of produce at a supermarket, are a “very secondary route of transmission” for the coronavirus. You should worry more about direct contact with someone carrying the virus.
“What we have learned over the past five months is that coronavirus is spread in the manner that we most thought it would initially, which is largely through droplets from the air from an infected person to another person who’s susceptible,” Sickbert-Bennett said in a video press conference Wednesday.
The theme of the press conference was “Is it safe?” — a question Sickbert-Bennett says she is frequently asked about various activities. She says there are no yes or no answers, only advice people should keep in mind. She begins by saying you should limit your interactions with other people, because every encounter potentially exposes you to the virus.
“It is very important for every person and every family to think about which activities are the most important and start by turning that dial really slowly for those activities that are really meaningful for them,” she said.
Keeping those activities safe comes down to the well-worn advice: wash your hands frequently; stay away from sick people; keep physically distant from people outside your household; and wear a mask or face-covering and steer clear of people who aren’t.
Here’s what Sickbert-Bennett had to say about specific activities:
▪ Air travel: Physical distancing may be a challenge, particularly if airlines are selling all the seats. Airlines are requiring passengers to wear masks, but not while they’re eating or drinking.
“Airports and airplanes obviously are a place where a number of different people are interacting and mixing in new patterns,” she said. “So it’s certainly something to be very cognizant of, whether or not it’s really an essential activity for you to undertake and whether or not that’s the right mode of transportation for you.”
▪ Playgrounds: The challenge with playgrounds is keeping kids physically apart and making sure they wash their hands or use hand sanitizer afterward and before eating.
“If the numbers of children could be restricted, if there was a way to really ensure that there wasn’t a huge crowd in different playground settings, then it can be a safe environment for children to play together, certainly a better environment than an indoor play structure, for example,” she said.
▪ Family gatherings: All the advice about interacting with people applies, but Sickbert-Bennett adds that making sure everyone is healthy is also important.
“Tell the family that’s involved, ‘We love to see you, we want to see you, but not when you’re not feeling well,’” she said. “If anyone doesn’t feel great, that’s not the time to go to a family gathering, that’s not the time to do grocery shopping and that’s certainly not the time to go to work.”
▪ Beaches: “There’s space on most beaches — at least most North Carolina beaches have space to keep a distance from others — so that is the best type of environment if you’re going to be out in public, to find places where you can keep at least a six-foot distance from others,” she said.
▪ Pools: Coronavirus is not known to pass from person to person through water, and pools are generally safe with physical distancing.
“The outdoor setting makes it safer,” Sickbert-Bennett said. “But it’s still an area where you would want to make sure you’re reducing any crowding. If there’s a snack bar where people would congregate to get in line for snacks, that would be a place to require mask usage and physical distancing.”
▪ Bars: Bars remain closed in North Carolina, under an executive order that dates back to March. But Gov. Roy Cooper this week ordered restaurants to stop serving alcohol at 11 p.m. statewide, to prevent transmission during a time when many restaurants essentially function as bars.
“That’s certainly a time when people are often continuously drinking and sometimes eating as well,” Sickbert-Bennett said. “So that is an environment where mask use is a challenge and is not going to be consistently applied.”
▪ Touching surfaces: “The efforts on thinking about surface disinfection are not entirely misplaced. It’s great to have clean surfaces and a clear environment,” she said. “But when we think about what matters most in transmission, it’s really hand hygiene, in particular before we touch our nose and our mouth. And that’s another wonderful benefit of masking, is that it does prevent that inadvertent contact.”
▪ Day-to-day activities, such as shopping or hiking: Again, Sickbert-Bennett suggests people decide what’s important to them, then consider how (and whether) it can be done safely.
“Outdoor environments give you more room for physical distancing, and so you have an added layer of safety there,” she said. “If you’re doing indoor activities, you want to be sure that you’re going to places where other people are wearing masks and you’re wearing your mask.”
