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The coronavirus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, can survive for several hours in an aerosolized form and for up to three days on plastic and steel surfaces, researchers reported Tuesday (March 10) on medRxiv. While the detection of viable virus means it’s theoretically possible to transmit the disease from contaminated surfaces or from the air—in addition to the typical route of having larger droplets land directly on a new host after an infected person, say, coughs in their proximity—“We’re not by any way saying there is aerosolized transmission of the virus,” coauthor Neeltje van Doremalen of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases tells the Associated Press.
The authors applied SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, the virus that caused the SARS outbreak of 2003, to plastic, stainless steel, copper, and cardboard in the lab and created aerosolized viruses using a nebulizer.
They found viable SARS-CoV-2 three hours after ...
