A Virus that is killed after 12 hours: True?

A viral message that goes around these days says that observing a ‘curfew’ of 14 hours would help to fight the COVID-19 war, by destroying the virus particles in public spaces, as the virus can survive just 12 hours outside the human body. IT IS WRONG.

This message was created in favour of the 14-hour curfew tomorrow. But little does the creator realise that this could do more harm. If someone believes this message, and relaxes even a bit in the control measures like personal hygiene and social distancing, that could lead to a disaster.

It is a fact that coronaviruses cannot survive outside the human body for long periods of time. But a recent study with the CoVid 19 virus has identified that the virus can remain viable for 4 hours on copper surfaces, for 24 hours on cardboard, and even upto 3 days over plastic and steel surfaces! These values are not absolute, but this signifies that these surfaces can continue to be infective for prolonged periods, under certain circumstances.

Being a new virus, studies regarding it’s behaviour are still underway. Let us reject such ‘assumptions’, as they do not have any scientific support. Propagating such hoaxes would put lives at risk, beware.

Lock-downs like this are happening in many places now. Sri Lanka is currently observing a two and a half-day curfew; that too in a nation with less than 100 cases. The highly prevalent nations have already observed lock-downs. Many nations have imposed local curfews, confined to specific high prevalent areas.

These measures were taken because ‘social distancing’ is a very effective method to reduce the spread of this epidemic. Not because of a specific property of the virus.

Another important aspect here is that COVID-19 in India is just progressing to its Third stage: The Community spread. The combat at that stage might need even stricter restrictions. False messages like these would do more harm than good, as they would turn the public skeptic against such measures.

We are a nation where a considerable subset of the population still believes ‘cow dung’ and ‘gomutra’ are effective against the corona virus. We have more than enough people with false beliefs here. Don’t confuse them more. This can result in ‘OUR’ (that includes all of us) failure in this war.

This war should be fought. Not just by Indians, but by the whole humanity, without differences in caste, creed, nationality, or religion. Let’s all stand together, and not be confused by pseudo science.