[unbanned]

However, SARS-CoV-2 RNA has been found on environmental surfaces in hospital rooms, quarantine rooms, and other community settings, implying that the surfaces can become contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 despite few studies being able to culture live viruses.46,52,79-82 Additionally, new variants with potentially greater transmissibility continue to emerge, and they may behave differently on surfaces than the strains that have been studied to date

So yes, there is a reason to do what you say is "theatre"

[voldacar]

Your comment is just not scientific

We have known that the virus can exist temporarily on surfaces since the beginning of the pandemic. Over countless millions of cases, there is still no evidence that anyone has ever been infected by contact with sars-cov-2 viruses on a surface.

> they may behave differently on surfaces than the strains that have been studied to date

"may" is doing the heavy lifting here. My priors for a small number of mutations being able to change the way a virus behaves on a surface are exactly equal to zero.

[unbanned]

My comment is a quote from the journal so...

[oxfordmale]

Wearing masks and handwashing is much more effective than foggers.The scientific evidence for fogging’s effectiveness remains largely inconclusive and official bodies such as the Centres for Disease Control and World Health Organization do not recommend it as a primary method for combatting the spread of the coronavirus.

[netizen-936824]

There is no significant risk of surface transmission

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4

[rapjr9]

If you actually read that article it says surface transmission is a _minor_ risk and is possible. It's not zero risk. It's also difficult to prove it is or is not happening. Omicron is thought to replicate faster, so a smaller amount of it could be a larger risk, including on surfaces. Has anyone studied Omicron surface viability specifically? At the very least, if someone wipes their nose with their hand, then touches a door handle and then another person soon after touches the door handle and then wipes their nose with their hand that is a lot like taking a swab from one person and putting it in the nose of another. So surface transmission seems obviously possible (and there are a couple known possible examples of it in the article), but doesn't seem to happen as often as aerosol transmission, but it is also hard to measure in the wild so it is still something of an unknown. Lots of people have stopped washing groceries and are doing ok. Lots of people still are using Purell very often also. Keeping the virus off your hands so you don't introduce it to your mouth or nose seems like a good idea. Trying to sanitize objects is recommended in the article, but only after other countermeasures and only if you have the time. Sanitizing your hands accomplishes the same thing as sanitizing surfaces -if- you always remember to sanitize your hands before touching your nose or mouth after touching something that might be contaminated. Viruses degrade with time on surfaces at varying rates, so infectiousness drops with time. The article says we don't actually know what that decay over time is in the wild. It also says there have been no conclusive cases of surface transmission, but that's only because it is hard to observe in the wild. How do you tell if someone breathed it or touched it? So "no evidence" here means "we don't know and can't figure out how to do a good experiment since we can't intentionally infect people". Aerosols are definitely the higher risk, but you can't rule out some surface transmission. Risk likely varies by surface location as well. A ceiling is low risk, opening your car trunk is probably low risk, a public bathroom door handle is higher risk.

[netizen-936824]

Could you please cite the sources that state that viruses are viable on surfaces? I remember reading a study about surfaces in COVID patient rooms not being viable, but was unable to find this study quickly. I did find a different one though. This one states there is not enough evidence for viability.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8302502/#_...

[ianai]

We’ve known all along that coronavirus can remain intact on surfaces for days. There’s reason to believe omicron would last longer than others: https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20211208/Computational...

[netizen-936824]

That's a study on ACE2 binding affinity, not a study on surface viability....

[ianai]

“ Secondary structural analysis of the Omicron variant reveals a higher proportion of alpha-helices than the Delta variant but less extended strand and random coil structures, leading to more structural stability.” It goes on from there.

They found reasons to suspect the omicron variant is all around more resilient to the environment and more contagious. Thus the connection to fomite and aerosol concerns.

[netizen-936824]

First: that is an entirely computational study. Computational studies are a great starting point but must be confirmed with real world tests

Second: stability != surface viability. The study literally mentions nothing about the ability of the virus to survive on inanimate objects. Yes some proteins may be more stable in some cases, but we need to test the viability of actual virus particles taken from actual surfaces after varying residence times

Third: all real world evidence and meta-analyses have come to the conclusion of extremely limited to no viability from fomites

Fourth: the part of the study which mentions stability has the following gem:

>Regarding stability scores, the researchers discovered that the stability across all spike proteins ranged between 32.8 and 34.7, slightly below the value of 40 that indicates a protein is structurally unsound.

These proteins are not very stable to begin with, so marginal improvement over wildtype basically says nothing. Not to mention the article does not mention fomites anywhere at all. So you literally cannot draw that conclusion. That is what shitty popsci reporters do, which is the wrong way to interpret research. We just cannot make logical jumps like that when dealing with insanely complex systems which we don't fully understand.

It's going to take way more than a single, limited computational exploration of protein structural stability to convince me of fomite viability. I'm saying this as a formally trained biochemist

[ianai]

Sorry, I thought you were just yet another denier of anything/everything on the internet.

[elzbardico]

There have been no documented case of contagion from contaminated surfaces. This is the hard science, fogging based on what if is not, it is theater indeed.

[sto_hristo]

Just because there is no documented case, that doesn't imply impossibility. Your hard science doesn't prove contaminated surfaces to be safe and until that happens, people with common sense make the correct assumption that such surfaces are a possible vector; just how it is with other viruses, germs, etc.

I will never forget how my company brought in a virologist from one of our best hospitals to explain to us this covid thing that is in the news - this back in Jan, 2020, about 50 minute live lecture. Throughout the talk she kept making it very clear that our country was completely covid free, that they have taken measures like temperature checking of incoming passengers. I guess that moron also thought that just because you don't see air, air doesn't exist. About a month later we were in total lockdown, people were pruning their work monitors to take them home... Funny.

[netizen-936824]

and most studies of surface viability conclude that there is minimal to no risk from surfaces

Its good to start out conservative in this regard where we assume viability everywhere, but evidence now points elsewhere

[netizen-936824]

It absolutely is theatre, presence of RNA does not equate to presence of viable virus. Frankly it's naive to equate them, there is far more to a virus than just RNA

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4

[Beldin]

Since when are viruses considered alive?

When i was taught biology, they weren't alive, but also not quite non-living. If memory serves, that is (it's been a while).

[elzbardico]

I assume that when people say alive related to viruses in the environment, they mean viable

[netizen-936824]

I learned that they're kinda alive. With the ability to reproduce only using the machinery of living cells to replicate their genetic material and proteins

The world isn't necessarily black and white