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- According to a new US study, the novel corona virus can survive on stainless steel and plastic for up to three days.
- The virus could not be detected in the air until after about three hours.
- Research suggests that if you touch a contaminated surface, you can get the virus for up to three days.
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According to a new study, the novel corona virus, which is currently spreading all over the world, can survive in the air for several hours – and up to three days on some surfaces.
New research from the National Institute of Health (NIH) shows how long the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19 can survive on different surfaces in homes and hospitals. The research team found that the novel corona virus survived up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and other cardboard packaging, and two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.
The study thus suggests that, theoretically, people can still become infected with the corona virus even after days if they come into contact with doorknobs or handrails that are contaminated with the virus – another good reason to use your hands regularly and thoroughly Wash soap.
Transmission of the corona virus via air has not yet been proven
The team also found that the pathogen could no longer be detected in airborne aerosols after about three hours. “Our results indicate that the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by aerosols and other infectious agents is plausible, as we have been able to demonstrate that the virus can be viable in aerosols over several hours and on surfaces up to three days,” said Neeltje van Doremalen, lead author of the study, told the Associated Press. In other words, the virus could survive in the air for up to three hours after an infected person coughs, sneezes, or simply exhales – although it remains unclear whether the virus can actually be transmitted from person to person via the air.
“However, we are by no means saying that transmission through aerosols of the virus is possible,” emphasized van Doremalen from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH.
The research result was published on the preprint server “medRxiv” and has not yet gone through a peer review process. The study is soon to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Previous research has already used other corona viruses, such as SARS and MERS, to estimate how long the novel corona virus could survive on surfaces. However, the new US study examined samples of the novel corona virus, which is responsible for the current pandemic SARS-CoV-2.
Although some experts argue that because of its similarity to SARS, this name could be confusing and should be renamed Human Coronavirus 2019 or HCoV-19 (note: this is what the study authors call it), this change has not yet been made officially.
Coronavirus is spread by infected people without symptoms
In their study, the researchers also compared SARS-CoV-2 to SARS-CoV-1, a similar coronavirus that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak. Although the current COVID-19 outbreak is significantly more dramatic than the SARS outbreak a few years ago, the researchers found that the SARS virus can survive on surfaces for as long as SARS-CoV-2.
However, the virologists attribute the faster spread compared to the SARS virus only to a limited extent to the environmental resistance of the new pathogen. Rather, they assume that even symptom-free infected people spread the virus unconsciously quickly. Other factors such as temperature, humidity and the stability of the virus also played a role in its spread, the researchers said. Further experiments are currently being carried out to clarify these questions.
The most important updates to the corona virus and everything about the current status of COVID-19 can be found here in our ticker
“HCoV-19 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused many more illnesses and deaths than SARS-CoV-1, and containment has proven to be significantly more difficult. However, our results indicate that the higher portability observed with HCoV-19 is unlikely to be due to the environmental sustainability of this virus compared to SARS-CoV-1, ”the authors said.
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