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Study: Omicron survives longer on plastic, skin, than earlier coronavirus variants

By on January 26, 2022

A study conducted by the researchers from the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine suggests the Omicron variant of coronavirus survives longer on skin and plastic than the earlier variants of the virus like Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma.This could be one reason why Omicron spreads faster compared to previous strains, the study said.

The study which is yet to be peer-reviewed has been published on BioRxiv.

On plastic surfaces, the Omicron variant samples survived an average of 193.5 hours or a little more than 8 days. By comparison, the other survival times on plastic were 56 hours for the original COVID strain, 191.3 hours for Alpha, 156.6 hours for Beta, 59.3 hours for Gamma, and 114 hours for Delta.

The Omicron skin samples survived an average of 21.1 hours. The other variants had these average survival times on skin: 8.6 hours for the original version, 19.6 hours for Alpha, 19.1 hours for Beta, 11 hours for Gamma, and 16.8 hours for Delta.

The variants were found to have more resistance to ethanol than the original COVID strain. After being exposed to alcohol-based hand sanitizers for 15 seconds, all COVID samples were inactivated.

The researchers reminds everyone to regularly use disinfectants and hand hygiene protocols recommended by the World Health Organization.

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