Coronavirus survives on skin five times longer than flu: study

[SheltieLover]

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-coronavirus-survives-skin-longer-flu.amp

The coronavirus remains active on human skin for nine hours, Japanese researchers have found, in a discovery they said showed the need for frequent hand washing to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pathogen that causes the flu survives on human skin for about 1.8 hours by comparison, said the study published this month in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.

"The nine-hour survival of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus strain that causes COVID-19) on human skin may increase the risk of contact transmission in comparison with IAV (influenza A virus), thus accelerating the pandemic," it said.

The research team tested skin collected from autopsy specimens, about one day after death.

More at link.

[BigmanPigman]

1. If this is like the 1918 Flu that is not good news...skin is dry in the winter.

"In the case of the 1918 pandemic, the world at first believed that the spread had been stopped by the spring of 1919, but it spiked again in early 1920. As with other flu strains, this flu may have become more active in the winter months because people were spending more time indoors in closer proximity to one another, and because artificial heat and fires dry out skin, and the cracks in the skin in the nose and mouth provide “great entry points for the virus,” explains Howard Markel, physician and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan."

https://time.com/5894403/how-the-1918-flu-pandemic-ended/

[SheltieLover]

3. Oh no!

Thank you for sharing.

[BigmanPigman]

4. This is the first time I heard of this specific issue

and remembered it from reading my Time magazine. I don't know if Covid can go through the skin like this but it seems possible. I wish a doctor could elaborate on it as far as Covid goes.

[SheltieLover]

5. I wish they would, too!

And media should be covering post-covid syndromes constantly!

[PSPS]

11. Covid infects through mucous membranes, not the skin or a cut in the skin.

Wash anything that comes in contact with your eyes, nose, ears or mouth (basically, your face.)

[Blue_true]

14. The skin is the body's largest organ. One of the skin's key functions

is to block pathogens from teaching non-skin cells in the body, which don’t have the level of pathogen fighting capability that the skin has.

So cracks in the skin likely gives pathogens immediate contact with more vulnerable non-skin cells.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Keep in mind that in 1918 a lot of people did not have

access to running water. Hand washing was far, far less common than it is today.

I honestly think the lack of running water and hand washing in 1918 is a vastly overlooked aspect of that flu pandemic.

While mere hand washing will not by itself shut down this pandemic, it will be a huge factor, at least where people have running water and wash their hands regularly.

[BigmanPigman]

12. When so many refuse to even acknowledge

that it is real and not a hoax they don't bother to wear masks or wash hands and use sanitizer. People have to take this seriously but with tRump telling them BS they won't be doing anything to stop the spread.

[Blue_true]

15. Good point, people also bathed less in those days also, so their skin

likely had many issues.

[Hugin]

16. Yeah, laundering clothes/bed sheets/etc on a regular basis was rare.

Most of the time outer garments were brushed occasionally.

But, why wash when the water was sometimes dirtier than what you were trying to clean?

Soaps were mostly lye based and very caustic.

It's definitely a whole different scenario now. Behaviors haven't changed much, though.

[Yavin4]

2. Wear face shield, a mask, and gloves.

The face shield will help you stop touching your face. The gloves protect your hands.

[PSPS]

13. Gloves are of little clinical value

They act as a reminder not to touch your face, but merely wearing them doesn't protect you from anything. If you handle something bad with a gloved hand and then touch your face with that same gloved hand, it's no different than not wearing gloves at all.

[Yavin4]

18. "then touch your face" hence, the face shield.

Gloves protect your hands, but you have to remove them once you get home.

[PSPS]

24. Gloves can retain a virus on their surface just like your skin.

A face shield may act as a reminder but they don't block you from touching your face.

[LisaL]

19. Really? Then why are doctors wearing gloves?

Just for fun?

[PSPS]

25. Doctors aren't touching their face with their gloved hands

[ahoysrcsm]

32. Why do doctors change their gloves between patients?

Why do doctors wash their hand or use hand sanitizer when entering the room?

[BusyBeingBest]

20. I disagree--gloves are quite helpful, provided you don't touch the outer

surfaces of them when taking them off, you don't touch your face, and you wash your hands as a backup when you're done wearing them. Handwashing properly will wash away MOST germs, but with intact gloves you avoid them altogether.

[PSPS]

23. That's not what I'm talking about

You touch something with your un-gloved hand and then touch your face with your un-gloved hand = is bad.
You touch something with your gloved hand and then touch your face with your gloved hand = also bad.

If you properly wash your un-gloved hand before touching your face, you should be OK regardless of whether it was gloved or not. Most people don't know how to remove a glove properly. The bottom line is wash your hands.

[Yavin4]

27. You are correct, but I don't wear gloves so that I can touch my face.

I wear gloves in combination with the face shield and mask to limit any exposure to the virus. I will even put hand sanitizers on my gloved hands.

[Hugin]

6. Yow... I was basing my personal protocols using the flu virus as a surrogate.

This is not good news.

We are indeed in a novel situation. The COVID virus seems very much more hearty in the environment than even in my cynical guesses.

[SheltieLover]

7. Ikr?

[Hugin]

9. Well, what I'd really like to know in the surface sanitizing equation.

Is how long this virus remains viable in full spectrum or sunlight.

Since heat (140 F/190 F - to be sure) and now time (9+ hrs) are proving not to be practical passive sanitizing factors on surfaces for a reliable confidence of non-COVID virus contamination in continuously occupied areas. Normally, viruses don't survive well on living skin. One word of caution is that these samples in this study were taken from cadavers. So, it wasn't living skin and survival of the virus on live skin may be of a shorter duration.

All we're left with is full spectrum and UV light for the passive rapid sanitizing of surfaces. I haven't seen any specific studies on that yet.

So, scrubbing with cleansers and the mechanical breakdown of this virus are still the most reliable way of sanitizing frequently touched items. Not good.

Wear a goddamned mask! Wash your hands! Limit your exposure! We're back to that for now.

Damn.

[Blue_true]

17. It supposedly has a less complex structure than flu virus also, which

makes how robust it is somewhat harder to understand, unless one think about the fact that many single celled organisms are among the deadliest things on earth and they constantly adapt to the situation that they are in.

[Hugin]

21. So much for leaving a plane sit over night on the tarmac and then slapping a...

"Sanitized for your protection" sticker on the side of it.

Hmm...

Anyway, I read an interesting article here on DU last week about how it's thought that even though the COVID virus is less complex and more variable than the flu. If they can develop a multi-factor vaccine for it, the vaccine may be useful against the virus longer. Their thinking is it's simplicity makes it's action very dependent on a number of single-point-of-failure features. If all of those are simultaneously targeted the virus won't be able to mutate fast enough to overcome it and in a best case die out.

Lots of ifs there, but, I'm sure not going to get in their way!

[Blue_true]

22. My uneducated guess on issues like this is that the spike protein is the critical

game changer which makes the SARS-COV-2 virus so deadly and robust. That protein may be capable of doing more than unlocking an entry path through the receptor that protects cells from invading viruses.

[Hugin]

26. Your uneducated guess is as good as my uneducated guess.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had say a unified Federal pandemic response giving us information on the virus, research efforts, and maybe some guidance on what-where-how different PPE were effective?

Right now, I have no more official information than I had back in March. Except, they added (against hellacious opposition from the WH) wearing masks.

So, we have distancing, avoidance, and masks.

Auxiliary, I've learned that indeed Pine-sol and Lysol are effective COVID sanitizers.

Pretty pathetic after nine months. Children have fully gestated in less time, for crying out loud!

[Yavin4]

28. I've been screaming for coordinated research and information sharing from day one.

I wish there was some sort of centralized database tracking ALL global studies, their methodologies, and independent verification of results. We should be working with our allies, at the very least, and sharing that information globally.

[Hugin]

29. +1

[Blue_true]

33. We need our allies.

I don’t believe that China has any incentive to share significant discoveries for four reasons, first Trump has been racist in insulting the country, second Trump and several other rightwing people have said that China must be held accountable for the virus infecting the world -which while valid to a small extent, is wrongheaded because the next killer virus can come from anywhere (say a novel variant of the deadly MERS virus, MERS started in the Middle East, third China’s economy is back strong, why not let it’s western rivals weaken? Fourth, if China comes up with a working vaccine or cure, think of the sales potential that country could harvest off the bat.

The only way out for us is to work hand in hand with countries like Germany, but Trump simply isn’t the type to pull that off.

[Dream Girl]

8. Sounds about right.

Why am I not surprised?

[IronLionZion]

30. Trump rallies have maskless crowd surfing

These people really like to spread it around bigly. Donny might end up like his grandfather.

[Hugin]

31. How does wearing a stupid hat and tee-shirt not infringe on their freedumbs, but...

wearing a mask does?

:smdh: