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The sun’s rays could quickly kill the new coronavirus, according to a new study presented by the US administration on Thursday, which gives hope that the pandemic could stop in the northern hemisphere during the summer.
William Bryan, a science and technology adviser to the United States Department of Homeland Security, said at the White House that government scientists had verified the strong impact of ultraviolet rays on the coronavirus.
“Our most striking observation so far is the powerful effect that sunlight appears to have to kill the virus, both on surfaces and in the air,” he explained during the daily press conference on COVID-19.
“We have seen a similar effect on both temperatures and humidity. The rise in temperature or humidity, or both, is generally less favorable for the virus.”
Scientists have been considering the possibility that it will weaken with increasing temperatures, that is, with the arrival of summer in the northern hemisphere, since the virus appeared.
Bryan showed a summary of the results of the experiment carried out at the National Center for Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures.
The study showed that with a temperature between 21 and 24 ° C and a humidity of 20% on a non-porous surface, it takes 18 hours for the virus to reduce by half.
That happened in six hours when the coronavirus was subjected to the same temperature but with a humidity of 80%, and in just two minutes when exposure to sunlight was added to the equation.
Scientists also did the experiment to measure the impact of these variants on the virus in the air.
The airborne pathogen was reduced by half in one hour, with a temperature between 21 and 24 ° C and a humidity of 20%. In the presence of sunlight, it took barely a minute and a half to do so.
Bryan said summer conditions “will create an environment in which a transmission can go down.” But he warned that less spread does not mean that the pathogen will be totally eliminated and that the guidelines for social distancing cannot be fully lifted.
With AFP
