What Are The Potential Coronavirus Dangers At Food Distribution Centers?
TRACY (CBS13) - The produce warehouse at a Tracy Safeway Distribution Center is running with short staff after several of its employees got sick with the virus and recently one passed away.
With cases also emerging from a Modesto Winco Food Distribution Center and Amazon's fulfillment center in Sacramento, CBS13 is digging deeper into the potential dangers not just within these centers but ultimately stores and customers.
Jeffery Klaussner is a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA.
"There's never been a documented transmission of COVID-19 by any package, by any material, by any type of food. That's just not the way respiratory viruses are spread," he explained. "There has to be substantial contact with these respiratory droplets. They can land on someone else, they can land on a table, they can land on the floor and contaminate their hands by touching those respiratory droplets."
Even though the coronavirus can live on surfaces for times ranging from a few minutes to a couple of hours, Klausner says the greater risk is for the employees inside the centers and the people they come into contact with not necessarily the products.
"Really there has been no evidence there is any threat to the general public for any products that are manufactured or any products that are distributed by a manufacturer or distribution center," he explained.
Klaunser says the best thing people can do after handling packages or groceries is wash their hands. Still, some folks aren't taking any chances and are wiping down what they buy.
"I am being very careful and once I arrive at home I take it out of the box," one woman said.
"I don't know if people are getting it from that or who touched what so," one man said.
