A review on coronavirus survival on impermeable and porous surfaces

We review recent studies on fomite transmission of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus. In particular, we focus on survival time of coronavirus on solid and porous surfaces. Since the aqueous phase of a respiratory droplet serves as a medium for virus survival, evaporation of the droplet on a surface plays a crucial role in determining the virus survival time. While the bulk of the droplet takes a few seconds to evaporate, previous virus titer measurements revealed that the virus can survive for several hours or days on a surface. This long survival of virus has been attributed to a residual thin-liquid film which remains after drying of the bulk droplet. The evaporation of the thin-film is governed by the disjoining pressure within it and therefore, is a much slower process which causes the virus to survive longer. However, the aforesaid disjoining pressure is significantly modulated for the case of porous surfaces due to their typical geometries. This accelerates the thin-film evaporation on porous surfaces and thereby making them lesser susceptible to virus survival. Therefore, porous materials are deemed to be relatively safer for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 via fomite transmission. Using results of the reported research, we briefly discuss the possible recommendations to mitigate the spread of the disease.