Paper: Aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 (SARS-CoV-2) compared to SARS-CoV-1

[solarbird]

Aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 (SARS-CoV-2) compared to SARS-CoV-1
Neeltje van Doremalen, Trenton Bushmaker, Dylan H. Morris, Myndi G. Holbrook, Amandine Gamble, Brandi N. Williamson, Azaibi Tamin, Jennifer L. Harcourt, Natalie J. Thornburg, Susan I. Gerber, James O. Lloyd-Smith, Emmie de Wit, Vincent J. Munster

Extremely rough summary: 3 days on non-virotoxic, non-porous surfaces like steel. 1 day on porous surfaces like cardboard. Less than 4 hours on virotoxic surfaces like copper. Aerosolised droplets (e.g. from heavy coughing) are possible and will hang in the air over three hours. The cardboard durability is the only statistically significant difference vs. SARS-CoV-1, the first "SARS" you heard of several years ago, probably in Toronto if you're in North America.

Comments

[gorgeousgary]

I've been hearing reports of that research.

Given my professional experience with research into various aspects of building performance and structural systems, I should note that results obtained in a lab can be very different than results in the field.

Meaning that particles of HCoV-19 could remain on surfaces longer than observed in the lab...but could also last a much shorter time. We can certainly hope for the latter.

So where does that leave us? More hand washing and use of sanitizer is certainly called for, but maybe don't go overboard trying to sanitize every surface and object in your house? And maybe you can let your kid use the playground as long as they wash after and try keeping their distance from other kids.

(As opposed to cooping them up inside and letting them slowly demolish your house, as is happening to us...)

[maellenkleth]

Derek Lowe (with whom I used to share a commuter-rail seating row) mentioned cardboard on his blog, 'In The Pipeline'.

Thought about that this morning as I scrubbed my hands after having deboxed various postal deliveries. :/

[solarbird]

These experiments are generally designed to be pretty much best-case for the virus, worst case for us. Coronavirus generally is susceptible to temperature changes (not happening here), higher temperatures (they don't say, but I'd expect room temperature, given the intent of the study), and higher humidity (which is part of why cold case rates can be affected by weather).

Last I saw, aerosolised droplets so far have been a concern in medical facilities, and not elsewhere - that part is more for health care workers than people in general.

[spectrier]

Based on these new guidelines for a respiratory department, which cite the paper linked, I think this supports that this mostly has implications for healthcare workers as ventilators can also produce aerosols. Really emphasises "staff working with covid-19 patients NEED PPE".

I'm not a virologist admittedly, so some nuance is lost on me beyond bumping into disease ecology stuff in my own field, but it's definitely important to stress that this paper DOES NOT conclude that aerosol transmission is something that occurs as a frequent transmission method in humans, even with heavy coughing - that's still just spreading droplets, from what I understand. From what evidence we have to date I think this just shows that aerosol transmission is plausible, but it's a limited risk under specific circumstances (such as covid-19 being put through a nebulizer, which is what the paper used for the study, or when a patient's being intubated).