BREAKING! COVID-19 Research: US Military Research Says SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus Can Remain Active On Animal Skin For Up To 4 days At Room Temperature
Source: COVID-19 Research Jul 07, 2020 4 years, 5 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 10 hours, 44 minutes ago
COVID-19 Research: A research in which US Military bioweapon researchers tested the stability of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen on various surfaces, including paper currency and pig skin showed that the novel coronavirus can live for days on animal skin at room temperature and even up to 2 weeks on refrigerated pig skin.
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The study has huge implications in the food industry, meat processing plants and refrigerated products. In the past a lot of so called stupid ‘experts’ kept on making public statements that the coronavirus was not likely to spread through food supplies without any supporting studies. The study also highlights meatpacking plants as ongoing routes of transmission.
The study findings were published on a preprint server and are pending peer review.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.01.20144253v1
Army researchers from Fort Detrick, Maryland, the biggest US military bioweapons laboratory tested the virus on the surface of various substances, including uncirculated paper currency supplied by the US Secret Service and unused cotton-polyester fabric.
The researchers found that of the samples, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus could survive the longest at room temperature on pig skin up to four days. And it remained stable on the skin in refrigerated temperatures throughout the two-week experiment.
The study team with the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases said they were concerned that meat plants could help the coronavirus spread.
Dr David Harbourt the study leader from the army base biosafety division told Thailand Medical News, “Without an extensive testing and contract tracing programme, transmission around meatpacking plants will likely continue to be an issue.”
The American military study followed a surprise outbreak of the coronavirus in Beijing last month. Most of the 300-plus cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen, were linked to a food market selling meat and vegetable products from home and abroad. The outbreak led to a partial lockdown of China’s capital and virus testing for more than 10 million residents.
Health authorities from China had suspected the novel coronavirus might have entered the market via imported frozen meat, but they had no direct evidence.
Dr Harbourt and his colleagues put Sars-CoV-2 virus on pig skin and kept the samples at 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit), the temperature pork is usually kept at in meat packing and processing plants. The viral strains had an average “half-life” – the time it takes for half of the pathogens to die out – of nearly 47 hours. Viable strains remained detectable for as long as two weeks in the chilled conditions.
Dr Harbourt commented, “It is likely that any viral shedding from either symptomatic or asymptomatic workers in the absence of appropriate personal protective equipment would remain viable for an extended period of time on the surface of meat products or other surfaces.”
He further added, “Even with extensive cleaning, transmission could still
occur in the presence of asymptomatic, undiagnosed workers due to both the enhanced stability of the virus and the high viral loads even asymptomatic cases maintain in the nasal passages.”
The military research team found that the virus died faster as temperatures rose. Pig skin samples remained positive for four days at room temperature (22 degrees Celsius) and only eight hours in summer heat (37 degrees Celsius).
Significantly pig skin resembles human skin and the effects on the two would likely be similar, according to the researchers. So there was “need for continued hand hygiene practices to minimize transmission both in the general population as well as workplaces where close contact is common”.
The army lab in the same study, also tested uncirculated one and 20-dollar US bills, finding the virus could stay on the surface of 20-dollar notes for up to a day in room temperature, three times longer than on the one-dollar bill. However the difference was not statistically robust due to limited sample size and required further investigation.
The researchers said, “It is possible that differences in ink type, concentration, or both, affected virus stability.”
The currency notes came from the US Secret Service, which protects the president, senior government officials and their families. At least eight secret service agents assigned to Vice-President Mike Pence’s team recently tested positive, according to a CNN report on Friday. The researchers did not reveal more details on the Secret Service’s involvement in the study.
A scientists from Chinese government’s Academy of sciences studying the novel coronavirus in Beijing said that the Ford Detrick study could be “closer to real life” than some previous studies that found the virus could survive on non-organic surfaces such as cardboard for days.
Those initial studies used a high viral load that could be unrealistic in real life settings, said the scientist who requested not to be named due to media policy.
The study findings will also prompt the US government to start issuing more protective measures with regards to the livestock and food industry.
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