“THE SUBWAYS SEEDED THE MASSIVE CORONAVIRUS EPIDEMIC IN NEW YORK CITY”
- see http://web.mit.edu/jeffrey/harris/HarrisJE_WP2_COVID19_NYC_13-Apr-2020.pdf
“I just don’t know about the latest reported finding. Too many obvious errors in the reporting.”
Thanks for your detailed review and reporting back. I think the reports you shared way back when (it seems like three years rather than ~ 3 months!) seem the most reliable. I just don’t see why the methods to destroy the Covid-19 virus would be much (any?) different than for SARS or MERS, or even the standard flu.
I’m thinking there might be some safety factor involved. With the flu that can make you really sick but rarely die - safety factor of 2. With MERS which has a higher death rate - a safety factor of 4 or whatever. And with Covid-19 being more easily spread than MERS warrants a higher safety factor? Or perhaps just because it is in the news so much?
Here is the paper, I believe (in preprint)
Evaluation of heating and chemical protocols for inactivating SARS-CoV-2
Boris Pastorino, Franck Touret, Magali Gilles, Xavier de Lamballerie, Remi N. Charrel
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.036855
This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?].
AbstractFull TextInfo/HistoryMetrics Preview PDF
Abstract
Clinical samples collected in COVID-19 patients are commonly manipulated in BSL-2 laboratories for diagnostic purpose. We used the French norm NF-EN-14476+A2 derived from the European standard EN-14885. To avoid the risk of exposure of laboratory workers, we showed that Sodium-dodecyl-sulfate and Triton-X100 must be added to guanidinium thiocyanate-lysis buffers to obtain a 6-log reduction of infectious virus. Heating protocol consisting of 92°C-15min was more effective rather than 56°C-30min and 60°C-60min to achieve 6-log reduction.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.036855v1
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.036855v1.full.pdf