New facts about surfaces and Omicron

Ways to Help Sanitise and keep an outbreak at bay.

 

A surprising new detail about the Omicron variant has emerged that could at least partly explain its increased transmissibility. “New variant lasts much longer on surfaces – but disinfecting still works”

According to new research, the latest coronavirus variant can survive longer on many household surfaces when compared to the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain

Over time there has been reduced emphasis on preventing surface transmission and a greater focus on preventing person-to-person and airborne transmission.

The researchers report SARS-CoV-2 variants can survive on skin and plastic more than twice as long as the original Wuhan strain. Of particular interest, the Omicron variant was found to survive on plastic for 193.5 hours and on skin for 21.1 hours.

Like many illnesses, Covid-19 is most infectious before symptoms appear. This means an infected person probably won’t know they have got the virus until others have already been exposed

An evaluation on human skin in the laboratory demonstrated that a 15-second exposure to 35 per cent alcohol was equally effective at inactivating the virus, regardless of the strain

The good news is that all of the variants seemed equally vulnerable to alcohol-based disinfectants when used on skin. What it does do is confirm that wiping down surfaces and hand sanitising are effective methods of killing any live virus that may be lurking there.

At Arrow Hygiene we have a number of available surface sanitisers, hand sanitisers, Gloves, Masks etc.