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Study Shows How Long COVID-19 Virus Lives on Different Materials: Plastic, Steel, Copper, Cardboard, Air

From 3 hours to 3 days

By Rain Noe - March 16, 2020

in Coronavirus | Medical | Materials | Covid19

A new study reveals how long the COVID-19 virus can survive on a variety of common materials.

The research, conducted by U.S. government scientists from multiple organizations as well as UCLA and Princeton, looked at four likely materials: Air, as that's what transmits droplets from coughing or sneezing; copper, which is prized for its antibacterial properties; cardboard, as that's what most things delivered to our homes arrive in; plastic, as it's a common surface that's easy to clean; and stainless steel, also a common surface that's easy to clean.

Here's what they found:

Air: "Up to 3 hours"

Image by Sambeet D from Pixabay

Copper: "Up to 4 hours"

Photo by Alex Plesovskich on Unsplash

Cardboard: "Up to 24 hours"

Photo by RoseBox ?? ???? on Unsplash

Plastic (Polypropylene): "Up to 2-3 days"

Stainless Steel: "Up to 2-3 days"

Photo by Russ Ward on Unsplash

I would not have guessed the virus would live longest on plastic and steel. Then again, the benefit of those materials is that they're generally easy to clean, at least when they're more or less planar, as in the surfaces of dispensers or countertops. As long as those surfaces are regularly disinfected, I'd be less wary of touching them than a polypropylene bottle cap freshly stocked (i.e. handled) on a store shelf.

Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash

The research was funded by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP, RC-2635) of the U.S. Department of Defense.

You can download a PDF of the full study (which, it should be noted, has not yet been peer-reviewed) here [PDF].

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Gary Lassin

4 years ago

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Would paper, like the mail we receive every day have the same characteristics as cardboard, or not?

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  Gary Lassin
  
  4 years ago
  
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  Yes. The study has the basic assumption the virus travels in a respiratory secretion droplet. They used 50uL droplets. In general, the faster the secretion dries, the faster the virus dies. Paper and cardboard are breathable and give a higher air surface to volume ratio than the PP or SS. Copper has a little antimicrobial efficacy which could contribute to it's faster kill time over the stainless. Although don't take that as an endorsement of copper's efficacy. Time kill should be in minutes, not hours, to decrease spread of a pathogen.
  
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Eric Strebel

4 years ago

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Fascinating, thanks for sharing!

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