A new study reveals how long the COVID-19 virus can survive on a variety of common materials.
The research, conducted by U.S. government scientists from multiple organizations as well as UCLA and Princeton, looked at four likely materials: Air, as that's what transmits droplets from coughing or sneezing; copper, which is prized for its antibacterial properties; cardboard, as that's what most things delivered to our homes arrive in; plastic, as it's a common surface that's easy to clean; and stainless steel, also a common surface that's easy to clean.
Here's what they found:
Image by Sambeet D from Pixabay
Copper: "Up to 4 hours"
Photo by Alex Plesovskich on Unsplash
Cardboard: "Up to 24 hours"
Photo by RoseBox ?? ???? on Unsplash
Plastic (Polypropylene): "Up to 2-3 days"
Stainless Steel: "Up to 2-3 days"
Photo by Russ Ward on Unsplash
Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash
The research was funded by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP, RC-2635) of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Read the compleat study Core77