Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us

Clinical Medicine Journal

  • ClinMed Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About ClinMed
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
RCP Journals
Home
  • Log in
  • Home
  • Our journals
    • Clinical Medicine
    • Future Healthcare Journal
  • Subject collections
  • About the RCP
  • Contact us
Advanced

Clinical Medicine Journal

clinmedicine Logo
  • ClinMed Home
  • Content
    • Current
    • Ahead of print
    • Archive
  • Author guidance
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit online
  • About ClinMed
    • Scope
    • Editorial board
    • Policies
    • Information for reviewers
    • Advertising

Safe surfaces

Leo R Brown
Download PDF
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmed.Let.20.4.2
Clin Med July 2020
Leo R Brown
South East Scotland Deanery, Edinburgh, UK
Roles: Higher specialty trainee in general surgery
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
Loading

Editor – Embarrassing stories are ubiquitous when it comes to early experiences in theatre. As a fairly fledgling surgeon myself, I still remember scrubbing for the first time. Watching carefully, I copied the consultant's every move, entered theatre, let out a sigh of relief and stabilised the stool as I sat. An experienced scrub nurse saw me touch the non-sterile surface and informed me immediately of my faux pas.

A similarly authoritative figure recently served me in the supermarket. Well meaning, I'm sure, he scalded me for standing too close as I packed my bags. Bizarrely, he seemed unperturbed by handling every item as it passed through the scanner. My basket was then immediately picked up by the next customer as I left the store. Surfaces were not of concern, only the ‘2-metre rule’.

To the nation's credit, behaviour in such public places is almost unrecognisable. Most are receptive to social distancing advice and even seem to have overcome their instinctive reaction to hoard toilet rolls. However, many seem oblivious to the potential risks of handling every packet in search of the best sell-by-date. Surface hygiene is undoing otherwise good precautionary behaviours.

The environmental spread of COVID-19 is undoubtedly multi-modal. Avoiding airborne droplet transmission is merely one weapon in our arsenal. SARS-CoV-2's ability to survive on dry surfaces extends into hours. Its half-life on plastic, such as the handle of a supermarket basket, is >6 hours, compared with 1.2 hours in aerosol form.1 While observed viral decay is exponential, this is unlikely to negate the risk posed by regularly handled surfaces.1

It unfortunately matters little how frequently people are washing their hands if they are rapidly ‘recontaminated’. While employers are instructed to disinfect high-touch surfaces within public spaces, to do so between each person is impossible.2 As such, behavioural changes to limit contact are imperative to mitigate the inevitable associated risk. The same absent-minded contact that led me to reposition a theatre stool is driving people to pick the basket at the top of the pile.

Public perception over how to stay safe from COVID-19 seems dramatically skewed towards avoidance of airborne droplets. The motivation to stay safe is undoubtedly present but, without understanding, it can be so easily misguided. We have recently read Greenhalgh and colleagues' ‘call to arms’ for the public to wear face masks as a precautionary principle.3 Do we not also need to better address the other main means of transmission? We need safer surfaces.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Prof Wendy J Graham (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) for her advice during preparation of this letter.

  • © Royal College of Physicians 2020. All rights reserved.

References

  1. ↵
    1. van Doremalen N
    , Bushmaker T, Morris DH, et al. Munster, aerosol and surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 as compared with SARS-CoV-1. N Engl J Med 2020:382;1564–7.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  2. ↵
    1. Public Health England
    . Guidance for food businesses on coronavirus (COVID-19). GOV.UK, 2020. www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-food-businesses/guidance-for-food-businesses-on-coronavirus-covid-19 [Accessed 27 April 2020].
  3. ↵
    1. Greenhalgh T
    , Schmid MB, Czypionka T, Bassler D, Gruer L. Face masks for the public during the covid-19 crisis. BMJ 2020;369:m1435.
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text
Back to top
Previous articleNext article

Article Tools

Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation Tools
Safe surfaces
Leo R Brown
Clinical Medicine Jul 2020, 20 (4) e131-e132; DOI: 10.7861/clinmed.Let.20.4.2

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Safe surfaces
Leo R Brown
Clinical Medicine Jul 2020, 20 (4) e131-e132; DOI: 10.7861/clinmed.Let.20.4.2
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Acknowledgements
    • References
  • Info & Metrics

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for the treatment of long COVID
  • Fibromyalgia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
  • Same-day emergency care
Show more Letters to the Editor

Similar Articles

FAQs

  • Difficulty logging in.

There is currently no login required to access the journals. Please go to the home page and simply click on the edition that you wish to read. If you are still unable to access the content you require, please let us know through the 'Contact us' page.

  • Can't find the CME questionnaire.

The read-only self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) can be found after the CME section in each edition of Clinical Medicine. RCP members and fellows (using their login details for the main RCP website) are able to access the full SAQ with answers and are awarded 2 CPD points upon successful (8/10) completion from:  https://cme.rcplondon.ac.uk

Navigate this Journal

  • Journal Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Archive

Related Links

  • ClinMed - Home
  • FHJ - Home
clinmedicine Footer Logo
  • Home
  • Journals
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
HighWire Press, Inc.

Follow Us:

  • Follow HighWire Origins on Twitter
  • Visit HighWire Origins on Facebook

Copyright © 2021 by the Royal College of Physicians