Aerosol & Surface Stability of Coronavirus: Info for Dentists

****If Coronavirus can remain viable in aerosols for multiple hours and on surfaces up to day, then the best way to avoid transmission is to capture the aerosols before they are dispersed into the air and, in the case of the dental office, before they contaminate the entire operatory.
To learn how dentists are mitigating the issue of
aerosols in the dental office using the AeroShield Aerosol Eliminator, 
click here.****

 

 

View full article on: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf

HCoV-19 (SARS-2) has caused >88,000 reported illnesses with a current case-fatality ratio of ~2%. Here, we investigate the stability of viable HCoV-19 on surfaces and in aerosols in comparison with SARS-CoV-1. Overall, stability is very similar between HCoV-19 and SARS-CoV-1. We found that viable virus could be detected in aerosols up to 3 hours post aerosolization, up to 4 hours on copper, up to 24 hours on
37 cardboard and up to 2-3 days on plastic and stainless steel. HCoV-19 and SARS-CoV-1 exhibited similar half-lives in aerosols, with median estimates around 2.7 hours. Both viruses show relatively long viability on stainless steel and polypropylene compared to copper or cardboard: the median half-life estimate for HCoV-19 is around 13 hours on steel and around 16 hours on polypropylene. Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of HCoV-19 is plausible, as the virus can remain viable in aerosols for multiple hours and on surfaces up to days.