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January 25,2022
Anna Murray
According to a study conducted by a team from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan, Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variations have a more than two-fold longer life on plastic and skin surfaces than the SARS-CoV-2 strain, and infectivity lasted more than 16 hours on skin surfaces.
According to the latest COVID19-related paper "Differences in environmental stability among SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: Omicron has higher stability," published on bioRxiv on January 19, the high environmental stability of all variants of concern (VOCs) could increase the danger of contact transmission and contribute to their spread. Increased infectivity/transmissibility has been attributed to an increase in viral load shed by infected individuals, a longer viral shedding period, a lower minimum viral load required to initiate infection, changes in infection target location, and increased environmental stability.
On plastic surfaces, the original strain and the Omicron had average survival times of 56 hours and 193.5 hours (equivalent to eight days), respectively. On body skin samples, the average virus survival time was 8.6 hours for the original version and 21.1 hours for Omicron. According to this study, the Omicron variant has the highest environmental stability among VOCs, implying that this high stability is one of the reasons for the Omicron variant's rapid spread.
Despite being more ethanol resistant than the original COVID-19 strain, all variations were completely inactivated on skin after 15 seconds of contact with alcohol-based hand sanitizers. As a result, the researchers discovered that using disinfectants in existing infection control (hand hygiene) practices is highly recommended, as recommended by the WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care. The WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care provide specific recommendations on hand hygiene in health care to health-care workers (HCWs), hospital administrators, and health authorities in order to improve practices and reduce transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to patients and HCWs.