Coronavirus May Live in Room's High Contact Surfaces, Singapore Study Says

New information about the coronavirus has been revealed indicating that the virus lingers in rooms as verified in a Singapore research done recently. Evidence proved that the novel coronavirus 2-19 might linger in different surfaces.

Areas of the high contact that will spread COVID-19 is the bedroom and bathroom. This means that these areas need frequent sterilization.

The study published in the Journal Of The American Medical Association (JAMA) states that the virus is killed by "twice-a-day cleaning of surfaces and daily cleaning of floors," with a readily available disinfectant cleaner, and everyone should be utilizing it.

This research was prompted as cases in China continuall increase. It is noted that the pandemic started in China with reported cases of both patients and medical workers.

Researchers noticed that many hospital-borne infections are not merel spread through coughing or sneezing. It is not merely airborne, but the environment is contaminated that keeps the virus alive. This is one factor that made coronavirus so virulent and transmittable.

Singapore's National Centre for Infectious Diseases and DSO National Laboratories focused on three positive cases in isolation rooms from late January to early February 2020 as a point of reference. Samples were taken from the rooms on a five-day period, and was observed in a two-week period.

The procedure for the study starts from checking the room before the cleaning. Meanwhile, other rooms were sampled only after the cleaning and disinfection process.

After the two-week study, the researchers who investigated the samples arrived at a conclusion.

Also read: Clinical Trial Results of Chloroquine Phosphate in COVID-19 Infected Patients

One of the patients with the room checked before cleaning displayed mild symptoms of the three. With only a cough that was observed by the study's authors.

The other subjects had moderate symptoms with fever and coughs. One of them had difficulty breathing, while another one had bad cough with long mucus.

One of the rooms had contaminated spots before cleaning. These spots were the chair, bed rails, glass window of the room, floor, and the switches for lights.

It was found out that three of the five toilets testing sites were contagious, like the sink, door handles, and the toilet bowl, which verified an earlier claim that feces hastened the contagion.

A sampling of the air was negative, but swabs from the exhaust vents were tested as positive, which points to viral droplets can be spread with airflow.

The researchers reported, "Significant environmental contamination by patients with SARS-CoV-2 through respiratory droplets and fecal shedding suggests the environment as a potential medium of transmission and supports the need for strict adherence to environmental and hand hygiene."

The count as of now is 95,000 cases all over the world, and with 3,200 as the body count with a 3.4 death rate, as revised by the World Health Organization (WHO). Knowing that coronavirus does linger in rooms, which is another way it spreads, should urge everyone to keep thier homes clean all the time.