One public health expert says the focus on transmission is still disproportionately focused on surface transmission.
We know that catching COVID from surfaces is now very unlikely, and the main way the virus is spread is by close contact and aerosol transmission.
So, why are nations still spending so much money on their COVID cleaning efforts?
Associate Professor Hassan Vally, an epidemiologist and senior lecturer at La Trobe University, spoke to the TMR The Tea Room podcast about shifting public focus in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
TMR: One of the major concerns at the beginning of 2020 was the role that surfaces were playing in the transmission of COVID-19. What does the latest evidence tell us?
HV: The evidence now points to the fact that surfaces don’t play a huge role in the transmission of the virus. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they don’t play a role at all but I don’t think that it’s one of the main modes of transmission. I’ve been advocating for communicating the extent of the risk that surfaces pose so that we can adjust our behaviours appropriately.
We don’t need to be obsessively cleaning surfaces 20 times a day, and we can concentrate our efforts on other things that are going to have greater efficacy.
TMR: What is useful cleaning, and what is not useful cleaning, when it comes to preventing the transmission of COVID?
HV: I think we should adjust our behaviours as the evidence changes in everything we do with COVID. It made sense for us to be really cautious at the beginning of this pandemic and do everything possible. But as we move into the next phase of the pandemic, we can start to put the risks into perspective.
It’s a good practice to clean surfaces every so often. But we can start moving towards just concentrating on our hand hygiene, and not cleaning surfaces a ridiculous amount of times per day. This is because the real reason we clean surfaces is because we think we’re going to touch them and that we may transfer the virus or another pathogen from a surface to our face – because we’re always touching our face. But if we maintain good hand hygiene, that is the most effective way to prevent that sort of transfer of pathogen. It could also save millions of dollars because we’re not sanitising every surface.
TMR: So you’re saying governments could be saving money by reducing these surface cleaning efforts that might not be very efficacious?
HV: I think there’s two things, you save money, but there’s also a lot of research that shows that in terms of our resources, if you spend a disproportionate amount of time focusing on surfaces, when there’s very little threat there, then you’ve got less energy and less mental resources to focus on some of the other things that are more important.
