Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2020 Apr 16;382(16):1564-1567.
doi: 10.1056/NEJMc2004973. Epub 2020 Mar 17.

Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1

Neeltje van Doremalen  1 , Trenton Bushmaker  1 , Dylan H Morris  2 , Myndi G Holbrook  1 , Amandine Gamble  3 , Brandi N Williamson  1 , Azaibi Tamin  4 , Jennifer L Harcourt  4 , Natalie J Thornburg  4 , Susan I Gerber  4 , James O Lloyd-Smith  5 , Emmie de Wit  6 , Vincent J Munster  6
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1

Neeltje van Doremalen et al. N Engl J Med. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Viability of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 in Aerosols and on Various Surfaces.
As shown in Panel A, the titer of aerosolized viable virus is expressed in 50% tissue-culture infectious dose (TCID50) per liter of air. Viruses were applied to copper, cardboard, stainless steel, and plastic maintained at 21 to 23°C and 40% relative humidity over 7 days. The titer of viable virus is expressed as TCID50 per milliliter of collection medium. All samples were quantified by end-point titration on Vero E6 cells. Plots show the means and standard errors ( bars) across three replicates. As shown in Panel B, regression plots indicate the predicted decay of virus titer over time; the titer is plotted on a logarithmic scale. Points show measured titers and are slightly jittered (i.e., their horizontal positions are modified by a small random amount to reduce overlap) along the time axis to avoid overplotting. Lines are random draws from the joint posterior distribution of the exponential decay rate (negative of the slope) and intercept (initial virus titer) to show the range of possible decay patterns for each experimental condition. There were 150 lines per panel, including 50 lines from each plotted replicate. As shown in Panel C, violin plots indicate posterior distribution for the half-life of viable virus based on the estimated exponential decay rates of the virus titer. The dots indicate the posterior median estimates, and the black lines indicate a 95% credible interval. Experimental conditions are ordered according to the posterior median half-life of SARS-CoV-2. The dashed lines indicate the limit of detection, which was 3.33×100.5 TCID50 per liter of air for aerosols, 100.5 TCID50 per milliliter of medium for plastic, steel, and cardboard, and 101.5 TCID50 per milliliter of medium for copper.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Update of

Comment in

References

    1. Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2020. (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situatio...).
    1. Wu A, Peng Y, Huang B, et al. Genome composition and divergence of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) originating in China. Cell Host Microbe 2020;27:325-328. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bai Y, Yao L, Wei T, et al. Presumed asymptomatic carrier transmission of COVID-19. JAMA 2020. February 21 (Epub ahead of print). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zou L, Ruan F, Huang M, et al. SARS-CoV-2 viral load in upper respiratory specimens of infected patients. N Engl J Med. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2001737. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chen YC, Huang LM, Chan CC, et al. SARS in hospital emergency room. Emerg Infect Dis 2004;10:782-788. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types