Question

If diapers are made in China ? Can they contain the virus ? Like once you open the bag then the bacteria is exposed to the air … am I overthinking this ?

Your overthinking, it needs a host to stay alive

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Yeah like Bugmania said, a virus needs an organic host to stay alive.

The virus has killed about–what, about 1.5k people? In a country with a population of 1.3 BILLION people.

Last year, during the flu season in the US-- about 80K people died from the flu. In a country of about 300 million people. That’s almost 5 times less than China.

You’ll be fine.

I work for an aerospace company that delivers a massive amount of volume of every kind of item imaginable from China daily, typically routed through Anchorage, Alaska. (including diapers). There are (expensive) procedures in place that damn near guarantee that everything that comes off of a plain coming from mainland China is looked at with a microscope.

I promise you have nothing to worry about. The media is reporting on the coronavirus because it’s easy, cheap, low-effort news clips for them to vomit onto the airwaves. It is nothing to worry over.

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Viruses like all things have a shelf life. Even on the off chance there was contamination the virus would die during the long unclimate controlled environment. If it really were an issue then people would be getting sick from Kleenexes . . . Nothing to worry about.

I read a report recently that said that the maximum time the virus could live outside a host was about 7 days. This was an educated guess on their part and they are doing further tests to see what the maximum time really is.

Regardless, since most items from China would take longer than a week to travel from there to you, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

Bacteria and Virii are two different things. But actually, they’re now thinking that the novel coronavirus can exist on surfaces for up to nine days. Most diapers come over in a container ship that takes about three weeks.

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Do you want to wear this fancy diaper free of charge? Naw I’d rather go to China and lick doorknobs :laughing::rofl:

Most products of this nature are radiation sterilised after packaging, so the risk would be very low.

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Viruses aren’t “alive”, at least not by most common definitions. They can exist in an inactive state (as just a “viron”) in a suitable environment indefinitely, not requiring energy or nutrients. Almost all virons are “encapsulated” in a protective coating that protects them while they are being transported to a new host.

Viruses do require living cells to complete their “life cycle”, to reproduce. A virus is essentially a bit of RNA encapsulted in a shell that protects it and is like a mechanical trap that springs when it randomly comes into contact with a compatible cell, which then “injects” the RNA into the cell to infect / take over the cell. The RNA is just a list of instructions that tell the cell to stop what it’s doing and use all its resources to make more copies of the RNA, build new capsules, and assemble the new virons together, repeat forever. (they also affect immune response, but that’s a whole different topic) Eventually the cell is crammed full of assembled virons and bursts from the pressure, releasing them to come into contact with other nearby cells or to escape into the environment to infect a new host.

Some virons aren’t hearty enough to survive long outside their ideal environment. Back in WW2, ships had a few “red seats” in their latrines, reserved for sailors with syphilis, because back then they thought the virus could survive on a toilet seat and infect other sailors. This later was disproven, syphilis can only survive on the skin or in the body. Other viruses, like influenza (flu), have no problem surviving in microscopic droplets of airborne mist when someone sneezes, to be inhaled by another person and become infected. (flu MAKES your body sneeze on purpose, that’s its primary method of spreading) Droplets that land on a surface and are touched are now on the surface of the person’s skin, and if they for example rub their eye, the virons are transferred into a suitable environment they get rehydrated and can start infecting cells in and the new person is now infected.

Corona Virus is every bit as infectious as flu, and can survive at least for days on surfaces. Odds are though by the time something gets here after a month long boat trip from China the virons should all be degraded by drying out etc and be inactive. (though if you are expecting China to sterilize anything non-antiseptic like medican gauze before shipping it, you’re crazy, sterilization costs money and most of what comes out of China is made as cheaply as will be accepted)

I hate to break it to you, but unless they come up with a vaccine for it, Corona is definitely here to stay, and will eventually reach every corner of the world. (the scientists have determined that even when isolated, it won’t “burn itself out”, it will continue to survive in the population and spread) These quarantine steps they are taking now is only to slow the spread. They know it’s inevitable, they’re just trying to slow it down so it doesn’t hit everywhere all at once, and to give scientists an opportunity to come up with a vaccine.

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Sorry to nitpick on an otherwise outstanding read, but I consider this important: Syphilis is a bacterial infection, not a viral one.

Treponema pallidum - Wikipedia