U.S. Postal Service Claims Mail Is Safe. A Study Found Coronavirus Can Live On Plastic For 3 Days.

Reports of postal workers testing positive for the novel coronavirus have raised concerns that the pathogen could live on letters and packages, potentially exposing people to infection just from opening their mail or Amazon packages. The U.S Postal Service's response: Don't worry about it.

"There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 can spread through the mail," the postal service said last weekend, alluding to the disease caused by the virus and citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization as its sources of information.

The federal agency, which employs about 500,000 people, is heeding recommendations from the CDC and public health departments, it added.

"The likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, traveled and exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low," according to WHO.

"In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures," according to the CDC. "Currently there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with imported goods."

One postal worker in Raleigh, Virginia, two USPS employees in White Plains, New York, and a worker at a USPS package-sorting facility outside of Seattle have reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus. USPS also said it is aware of an employee in New Orleans who may have contracted COVID-19.

But the "incident is not mail-related, and it has not been confirmed by the local public-health department," a spokesperson for the USPS' Dallas and Louisiana districts said Saturday in a statement.