Covid risk with eating after surface touching?

[escalade27]

Ok. I ate something after touching my steering wheel which I touched after work with all kinds of germs. I used hand sanitizer after touching the gas pump but don't remember washing my hands before touching food I ate. How likely is it you think I'll be ok?

[BonzoDog]

Most research now says it’s transmitted almost exclusively thru the air, breathing it in & surface transmission is very unlikely. At the beginning of the COVID crisis, no one was sure by what routes it caused infection, so just to be safe they recommended sanitizing surfaces & frequent hand-washing, but they’re not saying that now.

[AnxiousNoMore]

The article I read quoted the health authority who said, it was hard to know for sure where a lot of the 52 got it because many people were so careless that they had multiple potential sources of infections from the many infected similarly careless residents - which ties in with the resident's comment indicating  when getting tested they couldn't even be bothered with caution while standing near others who were likely infected.

[mkh9]

If you didn't touch your eyes, or nose with your dirty hands before you ate or before washing your hands you probably won't get it. The virus can be carried from previously infected people by feces from them and those that didn't wash their hands after using the toilet then touching people's food or possibly contaminating surfaces. But the likelihood is less since the main transmission is by droplets (respiratory borne).
mkh9

[AnnieBrooke]

The research is beginning to come around to a tentative conclusion that people most likely get Covid-19 by transmission through the air. It sounds like you're likely OK, except that you shouldn't be eating with hands that aren't clean for other reasons besides Covid-19. :)

[Paxiled]

My understanding accords with Annie.  As far as I know, with all the contact tracing that has been done throughout the world, which is a considerable amount, I don't believe anyone has traced it to touching surfaces.  It has always turned out the infected person had intimate and usually somewhat lengthy contact with someone who breathed on them.  I wouldn't worry, but if your area has unlimited testing, we're all theoretically supposed to get tested anyway, which isn't all that possible or necessarily useful, but it does add to the data pool, so it won't hurt you to get tested just for that, but that contact isn't going to give you covid from what we know at this point.  Relax.

[AnxiousNoMore]

In a condo complex in my area there were 4 Air BNBs and a lot of under 40 people. The investigators found 52 cases, at least some of which they guessed were from contact with popular touchpoints, like elevator buttons. One of the residents said in the Covid testing lineup afterwards where the city provided a mobile station for these residents, people were packed and none wore masks except her, so these were careless people. Best to be cautious about any possibilities.

[Paxiled]

My one confusion with this is, they "guessed?"  That's not very comforting or persuasive.  My info comes form the WHO and the epidemiologists I see interviewed every day who are doing the research on this, and so I will repeat, to this point, it is my understanding that nobody has yet been tied to covid -- not guessing, because that's not scientific -- who hasn't also had close intimate contact for a certain length of time with somebody breathing on them.  In your example, as they were all breathing on one another, hard to say.  But obviously, I don't know.  Agree with your advice completely on caution.  That's why we're all washing our hands raw.  Sigh.  But it does remind me of HIV, where originally everyone was advised to use a condom for oral sex.  Peace.

[AnxiousNoMore]

No one knows how easy it is to get from touching because it is invisible and hard to know how much viral load is needed to infect someone. Everyone has been infected accidentally so no scientist is able to know the viral load that hit the infected person's airway to create transmission. You don't know that the "germs" weren't old and all dead anyway, or that a Covid person coughed on the surface you touched either, so there are too many unknowns for you to know if you even had a risk. The only thing for you to do is check for symptoms and sd from others for a few weeks, which is what you sb doing anyway.