Public health and infection control experts say spraying entire towns is "a little over the top," because coronaviruses don't live long on surfaces.
Spray trucks, hoses, and bottles filled with household disinfectants like bleach are quickly being dispatched across China, as the country scrambles to control the outbreak of the novel coronavirus known as 2019-nCoV.
But in cities and towns across Asia, sanitation workers are also redoubling efforts to spray down entire towns, sending trucks filled with low concentration bleach-and-water solutions into the streets, and dispatching hazmat-suited workers into train stations and malls to wipe every nook and cranny.
In the US, his products are often used in places like poultry farms, for disinfecting before and after a new group of animals comes in to a barn. But such practices are not so widespread in China, he said. "One of the lessons that this incident — and SARS — tell us is that it's time to close the live animal markets in Asia, and in the United States, where we also have them," Webster said."China is wealthy enough to close those down, completely." "That's their culture," he said."It's how they're used to shopping and buying things."
Spraying cities with bleach is not a very effective way to stop a coronavirusSeeing lines of disinfecting spray trucks cruising the streets during an outbreak, or wearing a mask as a purely preventative measure may help give a false sense of security during an outbreak. But public health experts stress that those moves, which are minimally effective at best, can also direct money, supplies, and attention away from where it's needed most.
"I would rather see better efforts to make sure people are disinfecting emergency rooms and high-touch surfaces in hospitals and schools more than I would want to see bleach being sprayed on streets," she said."Honestly, think about how often do your hands or your mouth come into contact with a street?"
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