Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

Coronavirus can live on the outside of face masks for a week and on banknotes for three days, according to new research.

The study comes from researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) who tested how long the strain of coronavirus causing deaths around the world could remain infectious on different surfaces at room temperature.

The research, which was published in medical journal The Lancet showed that “strikingly” the virus was still detectable on the outside of a surgical face mask seven days after it was first placed there.

One of the researchers, Malik Peiris, a public health and clinical virologist, said that the result highlights the importance of face mask users not touching the outside of the mask.

He said that touching an infected mask would see the person’s hands contaminated and “if you touch your eyes you could be transferring the virus to your eyes”.

The virus was still present on plastic and stainless steel for between four and seven days, whilst it had disappeared from banknotes and glass on the fourth day.

The research found that the virus had disappeared from cloth by day two whilst on printing and tissue paper it did not last longer than three hours.

The study showed that the concentration of the virus reduced quickly over time on each surface and the virus was susceptible to standard disinfection methods.

The scientists said that the results did not “necessarily reflect the potential to pick up the virus from casual contact” as the virus’ presence had been detected by tools in the laboratory, not human hands and fingers.

Leo Poon Lit-man, from HKU’s School of Public Health, said that washing hands was the best way to combat the spread of the virus, and highlighted the importance of people not touching their face, mouths or nose without washing first.

He said those who were very concerned could leave non-perishable goods in shopping bags for a day before touching them as this would see the concentration of the virus on them largely reduce.

The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.