We are living in unprecedented times, with almost a quarter of the global population now on lockdown and at least as many again facing other restrictions to their day-to-day lives. Retailers are, rightly, taking precautions to protect customers and staff. In the UK, we have seen the installation of Plexiglass screens, sanitiser and cleaning products at store entrances and social distancing being strictly enforced through markings on floors and staff guidance.
As part of these measures, many retailers are advising customers to, where possible, use cards and not cash. Much of this advice seems to stem from a response by a WHO spokesperson to the question about whether COVID-19 could be spread by banknotes: “Yes that’s possible, money changes hands frequently and can pick up all sorts of bacteria and viruses…when possible it’s a good idea to use contactless payments.”
This has led to some people to take extreme measures, like microwaving their cash. This is not the recommended approach to ensuring your cash or your hands stay virus free, in fact this method will destroy your banknotes, and with coins will be even more disastrous.
Since the original response from the WHO spokesperson, they have moved to clarify their comments and subsequent misinterpretation about COVID-19 being spread through cash. Fadela Chaib a WHO spokeswoman said, “WHO did NOT say banknotes would transmit COVID-19, nor have we issued any warnings or statements about this.” The Royal Australian Mint clarified that the best defence against contracting COVID-19 is to regularly wash and sanitise your hands, regardless of the payment method that you prefer to use to pay. They also encourage retailers not to discriminate against those who prefer to use cash.
Which leads us to the question at the crux of the fears about using cash in these difficult times, “Just how dirty is cash?” In 2019, LendEDU decided to undertake an experiment to find out just how dirty cash, cards and coins really are. They used a device that tests for bacteria on a given surface and returns a “germ score”. For comparison, a score of 10 means that a kitchen is considered sanitary. LendEDU found that the average payment card had a germ score of 285. At either end of the scale, the dirtiest payment card scored 1,206 and the cleanest scored 48.
The banknote results were made up of 27 different bills were tested and the results showed that banknotes have an average germ score of 160. The dirtiest banknote was a $20 bill from 2009 with a germ score of 633, nearly half the score of the dirtiest card, while the cleanest bill was a 2013 $100 banknote, with a score of 3, almost clean enough to eat your lunch from. Next LendEDU tested coins and found that the average germ score was 136, making it the cleanest form of all payment methods tested, followed by banknotes.
This is not the first study to suggest that cash is not as dirty as is often perceived or the most likely culprit of transmitting bacteria or viruses. In 2015 scientists from the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi researched what particles of different bacteria were evident on different notes. On the cotton substrate notes there was only 9% bacterial populations evident on the notes, and less than 1% viruses. Polymer notes are, according to scientists at the Harper Adams University, more resistant to bacteria found on human hands.
With all that said, I think the best way I have seen the safety of banknotes articulated was from Christine Tait-Burkard, an expert on infection and immunity and the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh: the risk of coronavirus spreading on banknotes is small, “unless someone is using a banknote to sneeze in.” That’s not something I have seen, ever.
