Aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 (SARS-CoV-2) compared to SARS-CoV-1

Abstract

To the Editor A novel human coronavirus, now named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, referred to as HCoV-19 here) that emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019 is now causing a pandemic 1 . Here, we analyze the aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 and compare it with SARS-CoV-1, the most closely related human coronavirus. 2 We evaluated the stability of HCoV-19 and SARS-CoV-1 in aerosols and on different surfaces and estimated their decay rates using a Bayesian regression model (see Supplementary Appendix). All experimental measurements are reported as mean across 3 replicates.