More important would be “How long is it transmittable?” Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any good answers. It can survive for weeks on some surfaces in some environments. Highly variable. And it survives longer than it is able to infect someone else.
Still Disinfecting Surfaces? It Might Not Be Worth It
“But the risk of getting infected from touching a surface contaminated by the virus is low, says Emanuel Goldman, a microbiologist at Rutgers University.
“In hospitals, surfaces have been tested near COVID-19 patients, and no infectious virus can be identified,” Goldman says.
What’s found is viral RNA, which is like “the corpse of the virus,” he says. That’s what’s left over after the virus dies.
“They don’t find infectious virus, and that’s because the virus is very fragile in the environment — it decays very quickly,” Goldman says.”