You better make cleaning your smartphone a habit. New research suggests that COVID-19 can live on phone screens for 28 days. While experts say that we can get COVID-19 from airborne droplets, they now add that we can get it from surfaces.
COVID-19 on Phones
The CSIRO science agency in Australia reported the new findings. According to their research, COVID-19 survived on surfaces for 28 days. These surfaces include “glass, polymer note, stainless steel, vinyl, and paper notes.” These results also show that COVID-19 could live 11 days longer than the influenza virus. However, the researchers did the study under lab conditions. In short, these conditions are the most ideal for the virus to survive. You can’t copy these conditions in real life.
COVID-19 can live on smartphone screens for up to 28 days, researchers findhttps://t.co/5j3xOz9sFH pic.twitter.com/0ZHidr2OBe
— Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) October 12, 2020
COVID-19 Risk from Surfaces
On the other hand, you are still at risk. The researchers killed the virus with UV light. However, they also found live virus samples on steel, polymer, and glass surfaces after seven days.
Moreover, COVID-19 also survived on cotton cloth for up to 14 days under lab conditions. Earlier research suggested that COVID-19 could live for up to three days on glass and six days on stainless steel. With these new results, we must now clean our things regularly.
No Need to Panic
However, Gizmodo says we still shouldn’t panic. If we just wash our hands regularly, we can protect ourselves from COVID-19. If we add regular phone cleaning to handwashing, we’re just giving ourselves a better chance.
