A recent study says that coronavirus can survive up to 28 days on certain surfaces.
A research conducted at Australia’s national science agency CSIRO and published in Virology Journal has now revealed that the Covid-19 virus can survive on smooth surfaces for 28 days.
The research says that the virus can hold themselves up to 2 days on mobile phone surfaces, bank notes, plastic, stainless steel, etc.
Compared to Influenza A virus also known as the flu virus, the Covid-19 virus is much long lasting. Influenza virus has been found to survive up to 17 days on similar surfaces.
Researchers at CSIRO dried samples of the COVID-19 virus in an artificial mucus on a range of surfaces at concentrations similar to samples from coronavirus patients.
The experiment was conducted in varied temperature levels. They did the study by setting up an environment with temperatures 20C, 30C and 40C. From this the researchers found that the survival time of the virus gets shorter and shorter as the temperature increases.
Larry Marshall, the body’s chief executive said in a statement that ‘Establishing how long the virus really remains viable on surfaces enables us to more accurately predict and mitigate its spread and do a better job of protecting our people.’
Research has also shown that proteins and fats contained in body fluids can significantly increase the survival time of the virus.
‘The research may also help to explain the apparent persistence and spread of Sars-CoV-2 in cool environments with high lipid or protein contamination, such as meat processing facilities, and how we might better address that risk.’ Trevor Drew, director of the CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, mentioned this when he was asked about the findings,