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COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning?

The coronavirus behind the pandemic can linger on doorknobs and other surfaces, but these aren’t a major source of infection.
  1. Dyani Lewis

    1. Dyani Lewis is a freelance science journalist in Melbourne, Australia.

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Workers disinfect a residential community on the street in Hebei Province of China

Workers spray disinfectant on a street in Shijiazhuang, China, in January 2020. Credit: Zhai Yujia/China News Service via Getty

When Emanuel Goldman went to his local New Jersey supermarket last March, he didn’t take any chances. Reports of COVID-19 cases were popping up across the United States, so he donned gloves to avoid contaminated surfaces and wore a mask to prevent him inhaling tiny virus-laden droplets from fellow shoppers. Neither gloves nor masks were recommended at the time.

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Nature 590, 26-28 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00251-4

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