The coronavirus has been raging in Malaysia for the third year, and the virus is constantly changing. Recently, the new variant virus strain Omicron has stronger infectivity, which has made everyone panic.
Recently, Hong Kong is facing the fifth wave of the epidemic, and most of the cases involve Omicron, which is highly contagious. And a recent study by the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong School of Medicine found that Omicron virus is much more stable on smooth and uneven surfaces than the original strain.
According to reports, the research team compared the stability of the Omicron variant and the original strain on the surface of five different materials, namely stainless steel, polypropylene, glass, paper towels and printing paper.
The team dropped the original new coronavirus and the Omicron BA.1 substrain virus on the surfaces of these different materials and placed them at room temperature.
The results of the study showed that after 7 days of storage of Omicron virus on stainless steel, polypropylene and glass surfaces, the virus content was reduced by 98.19%, 99.65% and 98.83% respectively, but it still had a certain transmission power.
As for the original virus strain, it lost its ability to transmit after 4 days of storage on stainless steel and polypropylene surfaces, and it lost its ability to transmit on the 7th day on glass surfaces.
In addition, if the virus is dropped on paper towels and printing paper, the Omicron virus still has the ability to transmit after 30 minutes; the original virus loses the ability to spread after 5 minutes to 15 minutes.
As a result, everyone should wash their hands frequently, especially families with confirmed cases should be more careful, and household items must be disinfected regularly!