When it comes to getting sick with COVID-19, you might be thinking about this, and we have too. Emily Kamin asked, "What’s the risk of moving, with or without movers?"
We asked the experts: Dr. Nipunie Rajapakse, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at the Mayo Clinic; Katie Cary, vice president of infection prevention for HCA Continental Division; and Dr. Irfan N. Hafiz, infectious disease physician and Northwest Region chief medical officer at Northwestern Medicine.
Their take: The risk of contracting COVID-19 from moving is medium.
"It really depends on who your movers are, and friends that are coming over and helping you move, that's probably a lower risk versus, you know, an unknown company. But if they are taking some basic precautions, wearing masks, things like that, it's probably a manageable risk in that way," Hafiz said.
"So when it comes to moving, if you're packing your own home up and doing the move yourself, ... the risk of that would be low if you were not infected to begin with. If you are having friends come over to help you move, obviously that's a situation where you might be in close contact or within that six-foot radius from others as you're moving heavy boxes or pieces of furniture," Rajapakse said.
"Just having conversations with your moving company, making sure that the expectation is that everybody is wearing a mask when they're either moving stuff in or out of your house. And then, you know, as you're unpacking, it's just good, always good practice to be washing your hands throughout the process and not touching your face," Cary said.
If you have a question about your risk, send us a video to whatstherisk@newsy.com. You can see answers to other questions here.
