How Far Coronavirus Last ?

How far will the virus spread?

Novel Coronavirus

It can be maddeningly difficult to pin the answer down to a question like this, because of the epidemic's extent will depend on a number of factors, including when infected individuals become contagious, how long they remain contagious and how long the virus can survive outside a human host.

How long can the new coronavirus linger on surfaces, anyway? The short answer is, we don't know. But if this new coronavirus resembles other human coronaviruses, such as its "cousins" that cause SARS and MERS, it can stay on surfaces —  such as metal, glass or plastic — for as long as nine days, according to a new study. (In comparison, flu viruses can last on surfaces for only about 48 hours.)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Countries Affected

The first case was traced back to 10 December but it was not until 10 January when the Chinese authorities admitted they had isolated and identified the new strain when 41 people were confirmed as being infected and one person had already died.

Some disease the transmission has already taken place beyond Chinese borders, specifically in Germany. As the illness has been reported in 22 countries so far, the additional international transmission may be inevitable, but whether the outbreak will reach epidemic levels remains to be seen. To answer that question, scientists are working to determine how quickly the virus can spread between people and at what stage the disease is most transmissible.

Coronaviruses China

Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses common among animals. In rare cases, they are what scientists call zoonotic, meaning they can be transmitted from animals to humans, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials do not know what animal may have caused the current outbreak of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. But previously, studies have suggested that people were infected with the coronavirus MERS or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, after coming in contact with camels, and scientists have suspected that civet cats were to blame for SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

Cleaning with common household products can make a difference, according to the research, which also found that human coronaviruses "can be efficiently inactivated by surface disinfection procedures in 62-71% ethanol, 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or 0.1% sodium hypochlorite" or bleach within one minute.

The new research involved analyzing 22 previously published studies on coronaviruses, which researchers hope can help provide insight into the novel coronavirus.

"Based on the currently available data, I would primarily rely on the data from SARS coronavirus, which is the closest relative to the novel coronavirus -- with 80% sequence similarity -- among the coronaviruses tested. For SARS coronavirus, the range of persistence on surfaces was less than five minutes to nine days," said Dr. Charles Chiu, an infectious disease professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the USCF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center, who was not involved in the new study.

Coronavirus Vaccines

"However, it is very difficult to extrapolate these findings to the novel coronavirus due to the different strains, viral titers and environmental conditions that were tested in the various studies and the lack of data on the novel coronavirus itself," he said. "More research using cultures of the novel coronavirus is needed to establish the duration that it can survive on surfaces."

The CDC has noted that coronaviruses are thought to spread most often by respiratory droplets, such as droplets in a cough or sneeze and coronaviruses, in general, have "poor survivability" on surfaces -- but there is still much to learn about the novel coronavirus disease named COVID-19.

"It maybe possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main the way the virus spreads," according to the CDC's website.

According to the CDC, the flu virus can live on some surfaces for as long as 48 hours and potentially infect someone if the surface has not been cleaned and disinfected.

Rather, the virus is most likely to spread from person to person through close contact and respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes that can land on a nearby person's mouth or nose, according to the CDC.

It is still far more likely that you contract influenza rather than this novel coronavirus, meaning that you should get vaccinated for influenza as well. Everyone has a role to play to help contain the spread of this virus. 

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