Coronavirus outbreak has severely affected the world with over ten million positives. Amid coronavirus pandemic, WHO issued guidelines to wear masks and wash hands regularly in order to protect oneself from the outbreak. Meanwhile in a new study, researchers have found that Coronavirus can stay alive on the mask for as long as a week.
While a number of researches have analyzed the life of the unique coronavirus, formally referred to as SARS-CoV-2, on several surface areas, this new study– performed by scientists from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and also released in medical journal The Lancet– adds to the quickly expanding body of research study regarding the infection’ security.
In this evaluation, researchers evaluated how long the coronavirus endures on numerous surfaces at room temperature level.
Consequently, they located that the infection lasts on cells papers as well as printing documents for less than 3 hrs. Further, on cloth (like a common cotton lab jacket) and treated timber, it vanishes by the 2nd day.
On bank notes and also glass, it survived for two to four days, while on stainless-steel and plastic, it stayed for four to seven days.
Nevertheless, as for the external layer of a medical face mask, the researchers “strikingly” located noticeable degrees of infectious coronavirus even after seven days!
“This is specifically why it is very crucial if you are putting on a medical mask you don’t touch the outside of the mask, because you can contaminate your hands and if you touch your eyes you could be transferring the infection to your eyes,” Malik Peiris, a clinical and also public health virologist, informed the South China Morning Article.
It is very important to keep in mind that the visibility of the infection on these objects as well as surface areas was spotted by research laboratory tools, and also not fingers and hands– as the instance would generally be. For that reason, these outcomes do “not necessarily reflect the potential to get the virus from laid-back contact”.
The study likewise observed that the focus of the infection on all the studied surface areas lowered quite rapidly with time. Additionally, the infection died instantaneously when touched by common family anti-bacterials, consisting of bleach.
Do Masks really protect us?
When a person with Covid-19 uses a face mask, they can prevent other people from being contaminated. It’s likewise essential for health care employees to use face masks (as well as to have masks readily available to put on), both during surgical treatment and also routine treatments, to prevent people ending up being infected. Health workers are extremely trained professionals that recognize exactly how to correctly utilize face masks. The masks they make use of are medical-grade equipment, as well as are much more reliable than their towel alternatives.
Since we have no vaccine for the coronavirus, we only protect ourselves from getting infected from the contagious virus. Below are few tips that you should follow :
- Stay Home and Stay Safe: If you go through the unfortunate happenings in Italy, Wuhan and other areas. You will see that many cities have been locked down for months.
- Wash your hands often: Try to practice the basic hygiene, washing your hands with soap and water for good 20 seconds is important to wash all the germs you might have on your hands.
- Sanitize your hands: Sanitizing your hands from time to time is very important. You can use any sanitizer or rubbing alcohol which has more than 70% alcohol content will be able to kill the virus from your hands.
- Don’t touch your face: We understand that many of us have a bad habit of keep touching our face. But for the time being until we do not come over this pandemic do not touch your face, especially eyes, nose and mouth.
- Keep a safe distance: In case, you have to have come in contact with a coronavirus infected person then make sure you maintain gap. Do not go close to the sick person as you can catch infection easily.
- Cover your cough: If you are having cough then make sure you cover your face each time you cough. This thing will help in preventing further COVID-19 infection because coronavirus spreads with the droplets generated by corona infected person when he/she coughs or sneezes.
