A new experiment carried out by a team of French scientists has asserted that coronavirus/COVID-19 can survive long exposure to reasonably high temperatures. The new experiment has shown that coronavirus needs to be exposed to temperatures close to the boiling point of water to kill the virus and ensure that no trace remains.
The new experiment discredits the theory that warm weather could help kill coronavirus and that as summers approach, coronavirus will phase out.
A French research paper -- Evaluation of heating and chemical protocols for inactivating SARS-CoV-2, published on bioRxiv contained the details of the experiment.
Professor Remi Charrel of Aix-Marseille University, France, asserted in the paper that coronavirus can be heated to 60 degrees celsius for an entire hour and still have strains remain.
This 60 degree, 60 minute rule has been traditionally used in lab settings to supress fatal virus' in the history like Ebola, SARS and MERS.
The study showed that when the virus was exposed to a temperature of 92 degrees Celsius even for a period of 15 minutes, it died off.
“The results presented in this study should help to choose the best-suited protocol for inactivation in order to prevent exposure of laboratory personnel in charge of direct and indirect detection of Sars-CoV-2 for diagnostic purpose,” the authors detailed.
“There is some evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may transmit less efficiently in environments with higher ambient temperature and humidity. However, given the lack of host immunity globally, this reduction in transmission efficiency may not lead to a significant reduction in disease spread.” the report read.
Coronavirus global case tally has surpassed 2 million while the death toll stands at 126,764.
