Journal of a Plague Year, Saturday, April 18

The justification for buying household disinfectants was the need to clean surfaces touched by outsiders in a home, or by individuals coming in from outside. Restrictions on social intercourse lessened that need because, theoretically, only household members would be entering a residence.

Yesterday, I had a repairman in my garage. He wore a mask when he arrived, but took it off while he was working for three hours.

Now, what to do.

A New York Times reporter asked experts about the needs for personal sanitation. Most of the answers began with general phrases like "these types of viruses." If they were more specific, it was to the related "virus that causes SARS."

It’s still early in the history of the virus. Only one study was done on Coronavirus, and that was published by The New England Journal of Medicine in March of this year.

Neeltje van Doremalen’s team tested both the current form of Coronavirus and the one that caused SARS in laboratory conditions. They found the aerosols remained active the full three hours of the tests, and that it lived longer on plastic (72 hours) and stainless steel (48 hours) than on cardboard (24 hours). That made the hard surfaces and aerosols possible vectors for the disease.

My garage has a cement floor and concrete block walls. The door is a wood composite and the replaced hardware some steel alloy. Like anyone’s there’s lots of stuff stored in it made from wood, steel, plastic, and paper.

I decided the safest thing to do was only enter it if necessary for the next week. In the meantime, when I’m in the area and can keep an eye on wandering animals, I’m leaving the door about three-quarters raised so fresh air can circulate, as much as it does it a cave. It faces north, so doesn’t get sun.

Sources:
Tara Parker-Pope. Is the Virus on My Clothes? My Shoes? My Hair? My Newspaper? The New York Times website. 17 April 2020; 18 April 2020.

Neeltje van Doremalen, et alia. "Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV." New England Journal of Medicine. 17 March 2020. Posted on its website 16 April 2020.