Japanese researchers say the Omicron variant survives longer on plastic and skin than other COVID-19 variants, one possible explanation for why Omicron has spread so rapidly around the world.
than other COVID-19 variants, one possible explanation for why Omicron has spread so rapidly around the world.
In a lab experiment, samples of different variants were applied to pieces of plastic and human skin collected from autopsies, researchers from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine wrote in“This study showed that the Omicron variant also has the highest environmental stability among VOCs , which suggests that this high stability might also be one of the factors that have allowed the Omicron variant to replace theOn plastic, the Omicron variant samples survived an average of 193.
On skin samples, the Omicron samples survived an average of 21.1 hours. The other variants had these average survival times on skin: 8.6 hours for the original version, 19.6 hours for Alpha, 19.1 hours for Beta, 11 hours for Gamma, and 16.8 hours for Delta. The study found that the variants had more resistance to ethanol than the original strain of COVID. That said, all COVID samples were inactivated after being exposed to alcohol-based hand sanitizers for 15 seconds.
"Therefore, it is highly recommended that current infection control practices use disinfectants ... as proposed by the World Health Organization," the researchers said.BioRxiv: “Differences in environmental stability among SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: Omicron has higher stability.”
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