Unless there’s more to this, it doesn’t seem very useful to me. It seems obvious to me that you’ll find some RNA. However it would likely be damaged/fragmented.
I’m not sure about the second reference, it would be interesting to dig out the original study.
— Research found that SARS-CoV-2 was detectable in quantities large enough to be infectious in aerosols for up to 3 hours, up to 4 hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to 2-3 days on plastic and stainless steel.
https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-670...
Human coronaviruses can remain infectious on inanimate surfaces for up to 9 days. Surface disinfection with 0.1% sodium hypochlorite or 62–71% ethanol significantly reduces coronavirus infectivity on surfaces within 1 min exposure time. We expect a similar effect against the SARS-CoV-2.
As one of 9 million recently unemployed, I'd gently remind you that while the changes to our behaviour are simple, they have real costs.
Likewise groceries, parcels and deliveries either go into quarantine for 2 or 3 days or they are washed.
At this point new hospital admissions are significantly down from their peak. If the point is to slow the spread but acknowledging that it cannot be eliminated, we’ve in fact over-corrected.
On the testing and PPE front, again I wonder if this is just a feel good notion or if there’s even napkin math to show what scale of PPE and testing is theoretically being deployed and what impact that may have on R0.
But returning to the core point, how long until COVID has runs its course, and at what cost? Can we admit that herd immunity must be reached? As Dr. Birx repeatedly asks, are we at the tip of the iceberg or 25/50/75% of the way through?
No one wants to think about it because I guess it would make an uncomfortable choice obvious. Better to just self-flagellate so we can feel like we’re doing something.
> Saying that live virus is there because viral RNA was found is like saying I must be holding a meatball sub because there's a marinara stain on my pants.
https://www.virology.ws/2017/02/17/viral-rna-is-not-infectio...
But so much we don't know about this new virus strain, hence big rush to learn all these details about this virus as with better understanding, better management and approaches come about.
As for its survival rate on surfaces, we still don't know all the details, but does no harm to just treat all surfaces as infected outside your home and work with that - hence hand washing and not forgetting the details like tap, keys, phone, things you can't avoid touching up to the point you actually get to wash your hands. I'd hate to think how many have clean hands and then turn the tap off with the same hands that turned it on when potentially contaminated. That will be the small oversights that catch people out more.
Hence until we get that data to know for sure science wise, presume the worst and hope for the best is always the only prudent approach.
There is no "dormant vs. live" distinction for viruses outside of a host as they have no function / biological processes outside of a host. They are just molecular robo-syringes that inject RNA/DNA.
Heck, may find out that frozen good with contaminated packaging can put the viruses into dormant mode and when you take them out of the freezer, and temperature and humidity level kick it into life. Details like that unlikely, yet still not been ruled out and much science still ahead upon this virus and caught many off guard and on the backfoot, but we love solving problems and the science is starting to get more detailed a bigger picture every day. But still, mindful of not eliminating aspects that have not been totally ruled out is a balance of risk/caution and fair judgement still plays a part.
However, outside of the cell, neither of those terms mean anything.
A virus outside of a cell does nothing, period. It is essentially a USB flash drive with a computer virus in it. Saying a USB flash drive can "lie dormant in a drawer for days" is just silly.
> Heck, may find out that frozen good with contaminated packaging can put the viruses into dormant mode and when you take them out of the freezer, and temperature and humidity level kick it into life.
We won't though, because we thoroughly understand how these things function. There are things that function like that: bacteria.
https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwis...
All statements made in the paper are marked with "vorläufig", which translates to preliminary.
Considering the gravity of the situation, I don't think it's bad to provide preliminary results, but that's probably highly debatable.
— Research found that SARS-CoV-2 was detectable in quantities large enough to be infectious in aerosols for up to 3 hours, up to 4 hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to 2-3 days on plastic and stainless steel.
Edit: Now that I actually read the paper that OP posted, it seems that they're estimating the half-life of SARS-CoV-2. It really depends on the initial amount of viruses how long it takes to go below some fixed 'non-infectious limit'. So numbers such as '3 hours' quoted in the paper are pretty much meaningless in practical situations where the inital amount of viruses might be much different. It's not that they're trying to emulate a cough or something.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
More generally: will you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait to HN? You've done it a lot, and we ban accounts that do it, because it destroys the spirit of curious conversation, which is what the site is intended to be used for.
As a counter to claim virus is “unable to live on surfaces”:
Virus was found 17-days after cabins on a cruise ship were vacated: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e3.htm
Coronaviruses: How long can they survive on surfaces? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/coronaviruses-how-...
First link is ambiguous as to if the samples taken were “toxic” enough to result in infection, but the second link makes it clear that virus survives on surfaces for days in quantities large enough to infect someone.