Handling mail amid coronavirus: Low risk but wash your hands

Is it safe to pick up your mail? How about those packages from your online orders? And how safe are the people we count on to make those deliveries?

Health experts say the risks are very low that the coronavirus will remain on envelopes or packages and infect anyone who handles them. But those making deliveries are taking steps to try to protect themselves, whether it's no longer requiring signatures for packages or knocking on doors instead of ringing the doorbell.

Still, these are uncertain times, especially as many Americans staying home to reduce the spread of the virus rely more heavily on deliveries to avoid going to the store.

“It’s scary not knowing," said Kathy Payne, a postal carrier for 30 years in Rockwood, Tennessee, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Chattanooga. “Our biggest thing is the post office can’t get hand sanitizer, can’t get any supplies.”

One co-worker, she said, went on their own to a Walmart to stock up on 12 canisters of sanitizing wipes.

Payne delivers to more than 800 mailboxes each day. She said her post office constantly wipes down door handles and she sanitizes the large trays where the mail she will deliver is stored.

The Postal Service has provided her with plenty of gloves but not much disinfectant, so she brings a can of Lysol to spray down the trays and mail. She puts on one pair of gloves to sort through and pick up the mail, and then puts on a new pair when she gets into her vehicle. She constantly cleans her steering wheel throughout the day.

“We don’t know where they come from, who's touched them," she said of the letters and packages.

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