How Dirty Is Cash Anyway?
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve all become more aware of the many places germs can live, from certain surfaces of buildings to everyday objects. One frequently touched item that people are rethinking is cash.
Over the past six months, many shops and restaurants have gone cashless, instead limiting forms of payment to debit and credit cards or digital systems like Apple Pay. In March, South Korea removed all bank notes from circulation for two weeks for disinfection — and even burned some — to slow the spread of the disease. China took similar steps in February.
Months into the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clarified that transmission through surfaces might not be as common as originally feared. But that doesn’t mean paper money is totally germ-free. So how dirty is cash anyway?
“As humans, we’re bathed in microbes,” Philip M. Tierno, a professor of microbiology and pathology at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told HuffPost. “They’re all over us and the things we handle.”
In 2014, researchers from NYU’s Center for Genomics & System Biology identified roughly 3,000 types of bacteria on cash notes from a Manhattan bank. These microbes included bacteria linked to food poisoning, staph infections, gastric ulcers and pneumonia.
As humans, we’re bathed in microbes.Philip M. Tierno, professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine
Cash money tends to circulate for about 6.6 years, according to the Federal Reserve, so there’s plenty of opportunity to pick up germs. A 2002 study from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio tested 68 cash notes and found that 94% were contaminated with bacteria.
“Typically humans deposit bacteria from three areas of the body ― respiratory secretions from the nose and mouth like streptococci, skin organisms like staphylococci, and faecal matter. As a society, we’re actually bathed in faeces,” Tierno said.
“Luckily for us, not...
