Short Report A comparison of persistence of SARS-CoV-2 variants on stainless steel

The survival of newer variants of SARS-CoV-2 on a representative surface has been compared to the established UK circulating isolate to determine whether enhanced environmental stability could play a part in their increased transmissibility. Stainless steel coupons were inoculated with liquid cultures of the three variants, with coupons recovered over seven days and processed for recoverable viable virus using plaque assay. After drying, there was no significant difference in inactivation rates between variants, indicating that there is no increased environmental persistence from the new variants. Crown Copyright (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Healthcare Infection Society. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

The study compared the survival of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 on a surface with the established UK circulating isolate, finding that the new variants did not exhibit increased environmental persistence, suggesting that their enhanced transmissibility is not due to greater environmental stability.