Droplet evaporation residue indicating SARS-COV-2 survivability on surfaces

TL;DR

This study investigates how respiratory droplets containing SARS-CoV-2 form persistent residues on surfaces, revealing that these residues can insulate the virus and prolong its survivability, influenced by surface type and humidity.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of droplet residue formation and durability on various surfaces under different humidity conditions, explaining variability in virus survivability.

Findings

Residues persist for over 24 hours and are highly durable.

Surface thermal conductivity affects residue formation, with copper leaving no residues.

Humidity levels influence the formation and stability of residues.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 survives and remains viable on surfaces for several days under different environments as reported in recent studies. However, it is unclear how the viruses survive for such a long time and why their survivability varies across different surfaces. To address these questions, we conduct systematic experiments investigating the evaporation of droplets produced by a nebulizer and human-exhaled gas on surfaces. We found that these droplets do not disappear with evaporation, but instead shrink to a size of a few micrometers (referred to as residues), persist for more than 24 hours, and are highly durable against changes of environmental conditions. The characteristics of these residues change significantly across surface types. Specifically, surfaces with high thermal conductivity like copper do not leave any resolvable residues, while stainless steel, plastic, and glass surfaces form residues from a varying fraction of all deposited droplets at 40% relative humidity. Lowering humidity level suppresses the formation of residues while increasing humidity level enhances it. Our results suggest that these microscale residues can potentially insulate the virus against environmental changes, allowing them to survive inhospitable environments and remain infectious for prolonged durations after deposition. Our findings can also be extended to other viruses transmitted through respiratory droplets (e.g., SARS-CoV, flu viruses, etc.), and can thus lead to practical guidelines for disinfecting surfaces and other prevention measures (e.g., humidity control) for limiting viral transmission.