Researchers and scientists have discovered that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) could stay longer and remain infectious in money, glass, and common surfaces for almost a month.
This was revealed in the study of Australia’s top biosecurity laboratory that highlights risks from paper currency, touchscreen devices, and grab handles and rails.
Scientists at the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness showed SARS-CoV-2 is “extremely robust”. The study claims that the virus can survive for 28 days on smooth surfaces such as glass found on mobile phone screens and plastic banknotes at room temperature, or 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit).
The common flu virus survives on those surfaces for only 17 days.
The study adds that the virus survival rate declines to less than a day at 40 degree celsius. The findings add to evidence that the COVID-19-causing coronavirus survives for longer in cooler weather, making it potentially harder to control in winter than summer.
“Our results show that SARS-CoV-2 can remain infectious on surfaces for long periods of time, reinforcing the need for good practices such as regular hand washing and cleaning surfaces,” Debbie Eagles, the center’s deputy director and co-author of the study said in an email.
Transmission of the coronavirus usually happens when an infected person emits it while coughing, sneezing, speaking, singing and even breathing.
SARS-CoV-2 may also contaminate surfaces when these particles settle, creating so-called fomites that the researchers said may play a lesser, though important role in transmission of the virus.
“It does raise some critical issues around the need to keep on disinfecting surfaces, even when community cases are low .We still need to carry out those disinfection regimes, both personally and at a public level, even when there don’t seem to be any cases around because there may well be some residual virus that you’ve missed,” the researchers said.
In another study, the coronavirus’s stability on a dozen surfaces and found it survived five-to-seven times longer under cooler, less-humid spring/fall conditions compared with the average temperature and humidity in summer.
“If we couldn’t control it very well during the summer, we are in for a big surprise,” virologist Juergen Richt, said in an interview.
Scientists at the Australian government laboratory have determined virus survival previously for hundreds of different viruses. They found in the case of SARS-CoV-2 that it survives longer on nonporous or smooth surfaces, compared with porous complex surfaces, such as cotton.
Image by Dariusz Sankowski from Pixabay
