Sentinel Environmental Screening for the Coronavirus
New research from the US military shows that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can remain stable on the skin for 14-days. The higher the temperature, the lower the recovery. Therefore, the colder the environment, the longer the coronavirus persists on surfaces like skin, banknotes and even clothing. In this weeks Livestream I’m covering the role of ‘Sentinel monitoring’. This aims to test out selected high touch surfaces in an effort to detect the presymptomatic (before they show symptoms) and the asymptomatic (people who never show symptoms). New breaking research shows that swabbing the environment can detect those environments that are 10-times more likely to show a positive coronavirus case during clinical testing. The conclusion from the research is that environmental screening can help identify workplaces that are likely to hide spreaders! Surface testing in the environment should be used alongside clinical testing of people.
Of course, reach out to us if you need surface swab testing at your workplace. Fast and efficient onsite service. More details at: https://www.biologicalhealthservices.com.au/pages/coronavirus-environmental-testing
REFERENCES:
Sentinel Coronavirus Environmental Monitoring Can Contribute to Detecting Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Virus Spreaders and Can Verify Effectiveness of Workplace COVID-19 Controls
Douglas Marshall, Frederic Bois, Soren K.S. Jensen, Svend A. Linde, Richard Higby, Yvoine Remy-McCort, Sean Murray, Bryan Dieckelman, Fitri Sudradjat
medRxiv 2020.06.24.20131185; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.24.20131185
Modeling the Stability of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on Skin, Currency, and Clothing
David Harbourt, Andrew Haddow, Ashley Piper, Holly Bloomfield, Brian Kearney, Kathleen Gibson, Tim Minogue
medRxiv 2020.07.01.20144253; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.01.20144253
