The Coronavirus pandemic has been taking over the news for a few months now, and has imposed unimaginable changes on the daily lives of the world’s entire population. Although the situation is worrying, and rather devastating in some cases, being aware of the virus's behavior and understanding ways to avoid it seems to be the best way to deal with the crisis. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that spreads through droplets in the air. What makes it especially dangerous is its high rate of contagion, as the virus has the ability to survive outside the human body, in the air, and on surfaces such as metal, glass and plastics, if they were not properly disinfected. But how does the virus behave on each of these materials? [Latest Update: July, 2020]
It has been evident that human-to-human transmissions have an incubation time of 2 to 10 days, spreading through air droplets. These droplets are either released through coughing and sneezing or through contaminated hands and surfaces. For a more detailed explanation, a single cough can produce up to 3,000 droplets; and according to a study by virologists in the United States, the virus can survive up to three hours after being released through air droplets. As soon as they reach surfaces, such as walls, clothing, furniture, or other objects, the virus behaves differently depending on the type of surface it lands on.
