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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 18 2020, @10:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the good-to-know dept.

New coronavirus stable for hours on surfaces: SARS-CoV-2 stability similar to original SARS virus:

The virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is stable for several hours to days in aerosols and on surfaces, according to a new study from National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University scientists in The New England Journal of Medicine. The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects. The study information was widely shared during the past two weeks after the researchers placed the contents on a preprint server to quickly share their data with colleagues.

[...] The findings affirm the guidance from public health professionals to use precautions similar to those for influenza and other respiratory viruses to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2:

  • Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
  • Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
  • Stay home when you are sick.
  • Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
  • Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.

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. Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1. New England Journal of Medicine, 2020; DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2004973


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  • (Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Wednesday March 18 2020, @11:07AM (6 children)

    by dx3bydt3 (82) on Wednesday March 18 2020, @11:07AM (#972705)

    Ozone will do a good job of sterilizing paper, and I've got an ozone generator. Time to build a parcel sterilizer I guess.

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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday March 18 2020, @11:21AM (5 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday March 18 2020, @11:21AM (#972709) Journal
    Ozone is also a major indoor pollutant of photocopiers and laser printers. Easier to just ban returns of used boxes. Let the recipient recycle them. The sulphuric acid used as part of the pulping process should fix it (though it has other environmental problems).
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    • (Score: 3, Touché) by EvilSS on Wednesday March 18 2020, @09:21PM (4 children)

      by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 18 2020, @09:21PM (#972916)
      Who the hell takes boxes back? Seriously asking because I'm fucking drowning in Amazon boxes.
      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday March 18 2020, @10:37PM (1 child)

        by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday March 18 2020, @10:37PM (#972942) Journal

        I heat my garage on junk mail and Amazon boxes.

        (not totally facetious -- about one month's worth of credit card offers and other assorted junk mail, will heat my garage for several hours bringing the temp up from around freezing to the mid 50s or so and making it not torture to work on Christmas projects and such).

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2020, @11:25PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 18 2020, @11:25PM (#972963)

          What sort of after-treatment do you have installed on your junk mail stove? I seem to remember that burning printed paper is a source of a wide variety of pollutants and particulates--but if you have a catalyst installed that might clean things up a good bit?

      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday March 19 2020, @03:37PM (1 child)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday March 19 2020, @03:37PM (#973203) Journal

        This COVID-19 thing is really killing our efforts to recycle stuff responsibly. Until it hit, we took boxes back and filled a bunch of wheelie bins with them, and Kruger would send a truck to pick them up every couple of weeks. Same as we have made provisions to recycle the palette wrap (think shrink-wrap that you wrap around a pile of boxes on a palette to keep them all in one place during shipping).

        We still recycle everything we can, but the boxes that go out are now the responsibility of the customers to recycle, or not. When we do it, it's pre-sorted and of high quality - no pizza boxes with cheese crusted to the inside lid, etc. China would still be taking our recycling if it was all the same high quality.

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        • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:06PM

          by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:06PM (#973216)
          If you are talking commercially, like B2B, then most distribution warehouses and big retail/grocery chains (at least in the US) have box balers onsite and compress/bale the boxes and they get picked up for recycling anyway. It's only the small mom and pop places that don't have them and probably end up in the main trash stream if they don't have recycling dumpsters onsite.