The novel coronavirus won’t spread through newspapers, reports claimed, quoting experts. Times of India quoted Dr Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS, and Dr Om Srivastava of Kasturba Hospitals. “Viruses won’t survive for so long on paper to cause infections. Also, newspapers aren’t being distributed by COVID-19 patients, so there is no such risk,” said Guleria.
“It is an overzealous thought process. If newspapers and packages transmit viruses, the first thing to ask is, where is the evidence?” said Srivastava. THE WEEK could not independently verify or cite any study that claimed coronaviruses or cannot, or can, spread through paper.
Still, it is an ongoing debate within the medical community as to how long the virus can survive on surfaces or in air. The US Centre for Diseases Control (CDC) claimed that it may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.
The virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is stable for several hours to days in aerosols and on surfaces, according to a new study from National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University scientists in The New England Journal of Medicine. “The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.
The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, and suggests that people may acquire the virus through the air and after touching contaminated objects,” according to the report.
