[crooked-v]

> I doubt Amazon warehouses represent a significant transmission vector

Well, we know that COVID-19 can survive up to 24 hours on cardboard. That actually gives a simple way to avoid outgoing spread: make sure items don't begin shipping, or don't leave the truck, for at least 30 hours from packaging.

It means no 2-day shipping, but I think even "fast" shipping times are at something like a week for most people right now, so that's not much of a problem.

[djsumdog]

> Well, we know that COVID-19 can survive up to 24 hours on cardboard

Do you have a source for that? Nicholas Christakis (John Hopkins MD, infectious disease specialist) said on most surfaces, SARS-cov2 (the virus, COVID-19 is the disease) can survive an hour. He did mention it depends on the environment (it would only survive a few minutes on copper surfaces for example), so is cardboard able to hold the virus along longer? Is there data on this?

[jszymborski]

I think we just don't know yet. The WHO has this to say:

"It is not certain how long the virus that causes COVID-19 survives on surfaces, but it seems to behave like other coronaviruses. Studies suggest that coronaviruses (including preliminary information on the COVID-19 virus) may persist on surfaces for a few hours or up to several days. This may vary under different conditions (e.g. type of surface, temperature or humidity of the environment).

If you think a surface may be infected, clean it with simple disinfectant to kill the virus and protect yourself and others. Clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water. Avoid touching your eyes, mouth, or nose."

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses

[crooked-v]

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-survive-plastic-cardboa...

> and can survive on cardboard for a day—up to 24 hours—post-contamination.

And the actual paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...

[asalahli]

Tangential, but the only Nicholas Christakis I know of is a sociologist[0]. Is there another one?

[0] https://sociology.yale.edu/people/nicholas-christakis

[op00to]

“Survive” “viable”. Do these terms means if you touch a box and then touch your face you’re done, or only that the rna found was not degraded to the point that it was recognizable?

[crooked-v]

The actual paper[1] talks in terms of half-lives, so it would be gradually less chance of any spread over that 24-hour period.

[1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...

[waste_monk]

Not being able to get stuff out of the warehouse in a timely manner would screw up the logistics big time though.

Maybe have outgoing boxes pass through some kind of ethanol misting system to sanitize them? with a catching tray to recirculate the condensed ethanol for reuse. Although the fire risks of such a solution would be somewhat worrying.

[krapp]

That would be a major undertaking given the size of the warehouses involved, would almost certainly interfere with the flow of packages somehow (which, unless it somehow speeds up logistics, makes it a non-starter,) and it would cost money that I guarantee you Amazon doesn't want to spend.

[waste_monk]

The way I envisioned it would be reusing off-the-shelf garden irrigation tubing and misting spray heads (polytube / LDPE, which apparently has excellent compatability with isopropyl alcohol so shouldn't melt as I understand it [1]) wrapped around key doorways that outgoing parcels travel through. Isopropyl would be sprayed from the doorways and deliver a fine mist onto packages as they pass through. E.g. as they pass through the loading dock.

Isopropyl is cheap and easily available in bulk quantities, this would only need a water hookup to mix it to 70% isopropyl (again, using commercially available garden equipment normally used to mix plant feed inline with a hose or irrigation system). Reclamation systems would be a little more work - would need some kind of reclamation dish and pump that doesn't interfere with carts etc. passing through.

Maybe it is impractical, but I still like the idea.

[1] https://www.calpaclab.com/ldpe-chemical-compatibility-chart/

[krapp]

It might not be a bad idea. But if it did work, I think it would work best integrated into the conveyor systems rather than the end points. Although that would make those systems more fragile, there would be a lot more time to expose packages to whatever process was necessary (and dry them) than there would be at endpoints.

[djannzjkzxn]

Everything I’m buying on Amazon now has delivery dates four days or more out, whereas in normal times it’s one or two days. Maybe they are quarantining packages. Or they could just be backed up due to increased demand.