We are near to reach the year on this pandemic scenario which society has been hit hard in several aspects making us to acquire new models and strategies to keep living our lives and making this as similar as possible as before.
Scientists have used these months to find out more about this virus to achieve better strategies and ways to kill it and avoid getting infected in the process.
What we have learned through professional research
- This study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March, suggests that COVID-19 could live in plastic for 72 hours and cardboard for 24 hours.
- Another study published in The Lancet in April, suggested that COVID-19 could live in stainless steel for up to a week under certain circumstances.
- Some experts believe that COVID-19 can stay in surfaces for a few weeks under controlled conditions.
These help healthcare professionals to understand in a better way how viruses behave under controlled clinical circumstances, but the same results do not apply on the surfaces with interact to on our daily routines.
Some of you would think “the more I disinfect the better” but the truth is that there is a downside in doing that. Viruses, bacteria, and all living things adapt to their environment in order to survive, just as we have been hanging in these past months. Adapting is the clue to survival, therefore all micro-organisms get stronger and more resistant through change and evolution, to medicine and disinfectants forcing scientists and suppliers to develop improved products for markets.
Just as vaccines give us a little sample of micro-organisms so our bodies can create antibodies to be prepared for an encounter with them, micro-organisms can learn from misuse of disinfectants to get stronger and avoid being killed by them.
This is the reason why cleaning and disinfection industry should spread a new culture teaching how to use their products in the best way, how, and how often several surfaces should be disinfected. With these, we can achieve procedures that keep our surroundings as clean and disinfected as possible keeping us safe and letting us move forward through this pandemic scenario.
More studies shall come and will teach us how micro-organisms and viruses like COVID-19 work in our surroundings finding more answers and getting to better processes and hopefully, a better lifestyle.