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Also they measure active live viruses, and has been shown that some viruses can go dormant and come back to life so measuring an area for a virus may not pick
by Zenst 7y ago
Also they measure active live viruses, and has been shown that some viruses can go dormant and come back to life so measuring an area for a virus may not pick up dormant ones and lead to a result that is a false reassurance as the potential for those dormant virus to come back into life is still there.
But so much we don't know about this new virus strain, hence big rush to learn all these details about this virus as with better understanding, better management and approaches come about.
As for its survival rate on surfaces, we still don't know all the details, but does no harm to just treat all surfaces as infected outside your home and work with that - hence hand washing and not forgetting the details like tap, keys, phone, things you can't avoid touching up to the point you actually get to wash your hands. I'd hate to think how many have clean hands and then turn the tap off with the same hands that turned it on when potentially contaminated. That will be the small oversights that catch people out more.
Hence until we get that data to know for sure science wise, presume the worst and hope for the best is always the only prudent approach.
- strbean 7y agoDormancy refers to when a host is infected but the virus is not replicating. There is no "dormant vs. live" distinction for viruses outside of a host as they have no function / biological processes outside of a host. They are just molecular robo-syringes that inject RNA/DNA.
- Zenst 7y agoAlso refers to viruses dormant without any host, for example https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26387276 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26387276 whilst an edge-case and it does show that enviromental factors and how a particular virus responds and reacts are still things we are learning about this one. Heck, may find out that frozen good with contaminated packaging can put the viruses into dormant mode and when you take them out of the freezer, and temperature and humidity level kick it into life. Details like that unlikely, yet still not been ruled out and much science still ahead upon this virus and caught many off guard and on the backfoot, but we love solving problems and the science is starting to get more detailed a bigger picture every day. But still, mindful of not eliminating aspects that have not been totally ruled out is a balance of risk/caution and fair judgement still plays a part.
- jiofih 7y agoI suggest you re-read the comment you replied to. There is no “live” or “dormant”, in that article it simply means it was not damaged by freezing.
- strbean 7y agoDormancy isn't really proper biology jargon, the correct term for what I referred to above is latency. However, outside of the cell, neither of those terms mean anything. A virus outside of a cell does nothing, period. It is essentially a USB flash drive with a computer virus in it. Saying a USB flash drive can "lie dormant in a drawer for days" is just silly. > Heck, may find out that frozen good with contaminated packaging can put the viruses into dormant mode and when you take them out of the freezer, and temperature and humidity level kick it into life. We won't though, because we thoroughly understand how these things function. There are things that function like that: bacteria.