Viruses didn’t become ubiquitous by being wimps: From the rhinoviruses that cause the common cold to the new coronavirus that has spread across the world, they are able to survive on surfaces far away from the living cells that they need in order to reproduce.
How long they can lurk before a living organism comes along to infect depends on the kind of surface and the properties of the virus: The COVID-19 virus, according to a new study, sticks around on plastic surfaces for up to three days, but for a shorter period on metals.
Rhinoviruses can survive on human skin for hours, which is why shaking hands with someone who has a cold is a good way to catch it. Influenza viruses remain infectious for up to 48 hours after landing on nonporous surfaces such as stainless steel or plastic such as that in computer keyboards, but that seems like the outer limit: A 2011 study found that the H1N1 flu virus that caused the 2009 pandemic could be recovered from glass, stainless steel, plastic, and aluminum for up to 48 hours, but most was gone after nine hours. Both cold and flu viruses survive for much shorter times on porous surfaces such as cloth, paper, or tissue, with very little infectious virus remaining after four hours.
Viruses covered in “envelopes” have the most trouble surviving outside a living cell. On surfaces, the surrounding light, heat, and dryness break down the envelope, killing the virus. (Porous surfaces pull moisture away from viruses that land on them, accelerating the destruction of the envelope.) Most rhinoviruses have such envelopes; so do some influenza viruses. Norovirus doesn’t, enabling it to last longer in the environment.
Then there’s the new coronavirus. Its survival on surfaces is similar to that of the SARS virus, to which it’s related. On plastic, after eight hours only 10% of what researchers deposited was still there, according to a study published on Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. But the virus didn’t become undetectable until after 72 hours. On stainless steel, the numbers began plummeting after just four hours, becoming undetectable by about 48 hours. On copper and cardboard, virus was undetectable by eight hours and 48 hours, respectively.
The fewer the virus particles on a surface, the lower the chances that someone touching it will become infected. But because the virus that causes COVID-19 is, like other microbes, so durable, throughly washing hands after touching surfaces that anyone else might have touched — or not touching them in the first place — is the first line of defense against infection.
This story was originally published by STAT, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.
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