Air and surface measurements of SARS-CoV-2 inside a bus during normal operation

  1. Piero Di Carlo
  2. Piero Chiacchiaretta
  3. Bruna Sinjari
  4. Eleonora Aruffo
  5. Liborio Stuppia
  6. Vincenzo De Laurenzi
  7. Pamela Di Tomo
  8. Letizia Pelusi
  9. Francesca Potenza
  10. Angelo Veronese
  11. Jacopo Vecchiet
  12. Katia Falasca
  13. Claudio Ucciferri

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Abstract

Transmission pathways of SARS-CoV-2 are aerosol, droplet and touching infected material. The diffusion of the virus contagion among people is easier in indoor location, but direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 in air or on surfaces is quite sparse, especially regarding public transport, while it would be important to know how and if it is safe to use them. To answer these questions we analysed the air and the surfaces most usually touched by passengers inside a city bus during normal operation, in order to understand the possible spreading of the virus and the effectiveness of the protective measures. The measurements were carried out across the last week of the lockdown and the first week when, gradually, all the travel restrictions were removed. The air and surface samples were analysed with the RT-PCR for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus. After two weeks of measurements and more than 1100 passenger travelling on the bus the virus was never detected both on surfaces and on air, suggesting that the precautions adopted on public transportation are effective in reducing the COVID-19 spreading.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.26.173146: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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 did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

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

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • 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

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  2. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0235943
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.26.173146v1 on bioRxiv