Survival of aerosolized coronavirus in the ambient air

An inactivation of airborne pathogenic Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) virus was investigated under controlled laboratory conditions. Two sets of climatic conditions were used in the experiments; (1) representing common office environment (25 °C and 79% RH) and (2) climatic conditions of the Middle Eastern region where the virus was originated from (38 °C and 24% RH). At the lower temperature, the virus demonstrated high robustness and strong capability to survive with about 63.5% of microorganisms remaining infectious 60 min after aerosolisation. Fortunately, virus decay was much stronger for hot and dry air scenario with only 4.7% survival over 60 min procedure.