Air and surface contamination in non-health care settings among 641 environmental specimens of 39 COVID-19 cases

  1. Lei Luo
  2. Dan Liu
  3. Hao Zhang
  4. Zhihao Li
  5. Ruonan Zhen
  6. Xiru Zhang
  7. Huaping Xie
  8. Weiqi Song
  9. Jie Liu
  10. Qingmei Huang
  11. Jingwen Liu
  12. Xingfen Yang
  13. Zongqiu Chen
  14. Chen Mao

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Abstract

Background

Little is known about the SARS-CoV-2 contamination of environmental surfaces and air in non-health care settings among COVID-19 cases.

Methods and findings

We explored the SARS-CoV-2 contamination of environmental surfaces and air by collecting air and swabbing environmental surfaces among 39 COVID-19 cases in Guangzhou, China. The specimens were tested by RT-PCR testing. The information collected for COVID-19 cases included basic demographic, clinical severity, onset of symptoms, radiological testing, laboratory testing and hospital admission. A total of 641 environmental surfaces and air specimens were collected among 39 COVID-19 cases before disinfection. Among them, 20 specimens (20/641, 3.1%) were tested positive from 9 COVID-19 cases (9/39, 23.1%), with 5 (5/101, 5.0%) positive specimens from 3 asymptomatic cases, 5 (5/220, 2.3%) from 3 mild cases, and 10 (10/374, 2.7%) from 3 moderate cases. All positive specimens were collected within 3 days after diagnosis, and 10 (10/42, 23.8%) were found in toilet (5 on toilet bowl, 4 on sink/faucet/shower, 1 on floor drain), 4 (4/21, 19.0%) in anteroom (2 on water dispenser/cup/bottle, 1 on chair/table, 1 on TV remote), 1 (1/8, 12.5%) in kitchen (1 on dining-table), 1 (1/18, 5.6%) in bedroom (1 on bed/sheet pillow/bedside table), 1 (1/5, 20.0%) in car (1 on steering wheel/seat/handlebar) and 3 (3/20, 21.4%) on door knobs. Air specimens in room (0/10, 0.0%) and car (0/1, 0.0%) were all negative.

Conclusions

SARS-CoV-2 was found on environmental surfaces especially in toilet, and could survive for several days. We provided evidence of potential for SARS-CoV-2 transmission through contamination of environmental surfaces.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.09.195008: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Ethics statement: This study was based on the data from the work for an ongoing public health response to COVID-19 by GZCDC as required by the National Health Commission of China, and hence individual informed consent was waived.
    IRB: The study was determined not to be human subjects research and therefore was considered exempt from ethical approval after consultation with the ethics committee of GZCDC.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Figures were drawn using Office Excel (version 2019).
    Office Excel
    suggested: None
    Analyses were all performed with the SAS software (version 9.4 for Windows, SAS Institute, Inc.
    SAS Institute
    suggested: (Statistical Analysis System, RRID:SCR_008567)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • No conflict of interest statement was detected. If there are no conflicts, we encourage authors to explicit state so.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.09.195008 on bioRxiv