Survival Time of Covid-19 on Fomite

I received an article by Whatsapp  entitled:

“Exaggerated risk of transmission of Covid-19 by fomite”

It was written by Emanuel Goldman, and was sent to me on 8 July, 2020 by Datin Dr. N. Kandiah for my opinion.

Dr. N. Kandiah, is a senior specialist medical doctor who was my former colleague at the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) in Malaysia



Dr. N. Kandiah and myself have published a few papers together when we were working in the same department for many years at the IMR.

She sent me an article how scientists gave various estimates the length of time Covid-19 virus may survival on non-living objects (fomite) such as on door handles, tables and chairs before they can be transmitted "alive" to infect a person. 


She sent the article to me through our regular WhatsApp chat  for my comment.

Here’s what I think and reply.

Hi my dear Datin Dr. Kandiah  

Thank you for sharing your question

First of all I would rather prefer you ask me this question orally than in writing.

This is because of the length of the answer needed to explain in detail.

Furthermore, an oral answer is at least 10 times faster, and less effort  for me

Nevertheless, it may be easier for me to  post my answer temporary in my blog which can accommodate longer text than replying through Whatsapp chat using our our smart phones

Coronavirus are Pre-life Biomolecules:

First of all, these scientists who were trying to measure the survival time of Covid-19 viruses on fomite were  using unnatural methods and environments.

Straight away we need to know that all viruses including coronaviruses and pion particles unlike bacteria and other microorganisms are not living particles whether left for just an hour, for a day, a week or for months.

Coronaviruses do not have DNA as their genome, but RNA. This means they can only translate and not transcribe. Thus biologically they are ‘dead’ if they are unable to multiply by themselves but need a living host nucleic acids and their DNA for supply.

The RNA of Covid-19 virus is far too short and simple to be considered living whether on fomite or inside an animal / human cell.

The RNA of the coronavirus is just a short 29,811 nucleotides in length. Compare this with our human genome which is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and also in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria.

The total length of our human genome is over 3 billion base pairs in comparison. It is this complexity that gives us or other organisms the living properties of life and bearing all the characteristics of a living organism

Each SARS-CoV-2 virion is 50–200 nanometres in diameter (1).

Like other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 has four structural proteins, known as the S (spike), E (envelope), M (membrane), and N (nucleocapsid) proteins; the N protein holds the RNA genome, and the S, E, and M proteins together create the viral envelope (2).

Based on their relatively simple protein-based structure they are not capable of complex chemistry that is characteristics and common in living organisms that gives life.

Hence they can only depend on a living host merely to duplicate themselves, but devoid of all other characteristics of life as defined earlier.

Under such situations I believe viruses including coronaviruses may be able to remain in suspended animation indefinitely over very long periods of time outside a human body, and yet still very potential if a chance becomes favorable for it to infect from a fomite

They are unlike other living organisms with cells and DNA that can duplicate themselves, coronaviruses cannot do the same.

Definition of Life:

The traditional definition of life is one that moves on its own, respires, respond and is sensitive to stimulus, have its own metabolism, grows on its own, one that reproduces on its own, feeds, excretes, and requires nutrition.

However, I would prefer to label this as the characteristics of life rather than its definition as we have little clue what is it that makes non-living molecules become alive and living.

See my other sites on "Mysteries of Life here:

1.      

1.       “The Mystery of Life”:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=mystery+of+life

2.       Jesus First Miracle:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=jesus+first+miracle

3.       Life in the Universe: By Intelligent Design or by Accident:

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2019/12/life-in-universe-by-intelligent-design.html

  

Coronaviruses and all viruses do not have these properties except multiply inside a living host. It cannot feed and reproduces on its own, and hence they are not considered as “living”

Since all viruses including Covid-19 are largely pre-life inanimate protein particles that has no life in them outside a living hosts it is meaningless for scientists to talk about “survival time” on fomite.

Infection from Fomite?:

However scientists claim that on fomite surfaces the amount of active virus decreases over time until it can no longer cause infection (3), and surfaces are thought not to be the main way the virus spreads (4).

However they admit  it is unknown what amount of virus on surfaces is required to cause infection via fomite,  but again some claimed the virus  can be detected for up to four hours on copper, up to one day on cardboard, and up to three days on plastic (polypropylene) and stainless steel (5, 6, 7, 8).

Then they went on to suggest (without evidence) that fomite surfaces are easily decontaminated with household disinfectants which kill the virus outside the human body or on the hands (9).

But none of the scientists was able to demonstrate conclusively that the coronavirus were “alive” before they became “dead” and no longer infective whatever the numbers left?

Without being able to demonstrate their infectivity it is not possible to put figures on their “survival time”

The Analogy of Cats, Dogs and a Stone:

We can put a cat, a dog or any living creature inside a cage without giving it food and water we can determine their survival time.

But we cannot  put a brick, a stone, a piece of rock, a hammer, a pot or any inanimate object  inside a cage and don’t give it food and water it would be absurd to measure  how long will these inanimate objects can “survive” in the cage.

Such experiment does not make sense. But these scientists were doing just that?

Unfortunately in order to demonstrate their degrees of infectivity this can only be done through human experiments which of course would be highly unethical to conduct.

Animal models would not be suitable as the results may not be translated onto humans just like the corona virus affect humans but not the bats, pangolins and civet cats

Hence, to me there is no question about using the term “survival time” to determine their “infectivity” if they cannot demonstrate the relationship between survival time and its infectivity on humans.

A Jumping Guest:

However, one may say that they can remain in an animal reservoir in between a certain period of time before jumping species to infect humans as a zoonotic disease.

There is actually no definitive evidence yet to link this virus to  an intermediate living animal reservoir, such as a pangolin, to its introduction to humans. (10) (11), let alone surviving on-living objects and fomite.

The virus shows little genetic diversity and that the spillover event introducing SARS-CoV-2 to humans was merely by favorable chance.

An Ancient Origin:

What was even more interesting at least to me was that, on 3 July 2020, scientists reported finding  a major genetic risk factor of the Covid-19 virus was inherited from archaic Neanderthals 60,000 years ago (13, 14).

If this finding is true, the most interesting question I have asked myself is how did this virus “survived” for 60,000 years without infecting any human beings? Did they survive on fomite?

The scientists who gave various “survival time” on fomite varying from a few hours to a few days  seems very uncertain and  very flicked-minded, making their estimation highly unreliable.

They may not even know that this virus may have been existence on Earth for a very long time without infecting any animals or humans until now? Why then did they suddenly become “alive” after a long, long period of latency?  

Found in Sewage Water:

What is more interesting was, even before the outbreak in Wuhan in December, 2019, COVID-19 virus was already found in sewage water samples in Brazil.

The finding is two months earlier than the first official confirmed case of COVID-19 in the Americas on January 21, and much earlier than the first reported case in Brazil at the end of February.

This finding was also much earlier than those found in Wuhan, suggesting this virus did not originate from China.

Recently Dr. Tom Jefferson from the University of Oxford believes many viruses lie dormant throughout the globe and emerge when conditions are favorable. That is more likely and I do concur with him.

Since coronaviruses like all viruses do not fall within the definition of a living organism, they do not require nutrition, air, warmth, complex chemistry of metabolism, like all other living organisms. Hence, they may be able to remain infective outside a living host on fomite for very long periods of time.

All living organisms must satisfy the following characteristics in that they  respond to their environment, grow and change, able to reproduce and have offspring, have complex chemistry, maintain homeostasis, have  structures called cells and able to pass their traits onto their offspring

Coronaviruses like all other viruses do not possess any of these life characteristics except they can only reproduce themselves once inside a host cell.

Suspended Animation for Eons:

In my opinion they can remain almost all eternity in suspended animation until they can find a suitable host like bats, civet cats and humans to infect and multiply.

Once again, the question on survival time of the corona virus outside a living body on an inanimate surface or object such as on a door handle, on a seat or chair, or a door…etc. is completely irreverent, and should never be asked let alone attempt to determine because all viruses including SARS, MERS, Covid-19 are all non-living protein particles like prions and they may remain dominant indefinitely.

They don’t even display abiogenesis, meaning becoming alive and living from non-living matter fomite such as from the floor, walls, tables, chairs or door handles,  which people touch or from the chair people sit on.

The other problem we have not solved is where did this virus come from? Some say it came from the bats, others claimed it originated from the ant-eater (pangolin), others believed from wild birds, and then transferred along the line to humans.

Although four of the five patients from whom this virus was identified were associated with a seafood market in Wuhan, the exact origin of infection is unknown. The CoV could have been transmitted to humans through an intermediate carrier, such as in the case of SARS-CoV (palm civet meat) or MERS-CoV (camel).

If that finding was true, then where was this group of similar viruses hiding before entering into these animals? Were they lying low and latent on fomite for several million or 2-3 billion years?

They may have been some ancient viruses that may have undergone multiple mutations to give rise to this strains exactly like how various species of life were evolved through very minute changes in their cellular mutations over millions of years due to changing or hostile environments that necessitates such changes by Natural Selection Finally they all emerged differently.  

Read more from Asian Scientist Magazine at:

https://www.asianscientist.com/2020/02/topnews/china-coronavirus-covid-19-study/

Mutations:

Evidence that they belong to the same virus, but mutated strains found in humans is found in this example:

The scientists first obtained bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid samples taken from the patients isolated the DNA and RNA, then sequenced the genetic material. Most of the viral sequences belonged to the CoV family of viruses, which includes the SARS-CoV and the Middle East respiratory syndrome-related (MERS) CoV.

But no one so far is able to tell us from where did the camels, birds, bats, wild fowls, or ass first got this virus?

Then when they cannot answer, they started blaming the Chinese who created it in their labs, and call it the “Chinese virus”

When there were numerous objections to this conspiracy,  they then claimed it started in the wild life market in Wuhan.

But they stopped short of explaining how a teenager American girl on the other side of this Planet Earth, 12,500 km away across the Pacific Ocean got infected by this coronavirus at the same time as those in Wuhan

But they stopped short of  claiming the bats flew to America, or the pangolin and the camels crawled all the way from Wuhan to America  exactly at the same time to infect this girl, or did the girl touched some  fomite parcel sent to her from China within a few hours  of the virus ‘survival time”

I just cannot imagine how confused these scientists were to come out with all sorts of  theories, conspiracies because none can explain where did this virus first originated,  and how did it suddenly became “alive” from nowhere - be it from fomite or from animal hosts

The third problem with specialist scientists is that they all look at the problem only from their own narrow-blinded specialist.

This is like the 4 blind men trying to describe an elephant. 

I think scientists who describe the origin of this virus  need also undergo a specialized courses  on  astrobiology, evolutionary biology and the origin of life to understand  where all life, including pre-life RNA and DNA biomolecules like viruses as precursors to life that first originated on Earth or outside this planet.

These viruses, be they  SARS, MERS, or SARS-Covid-19 or any of the millions of other  viruses may have been already been in existence  here on Earth on their own without  any living hosts for 3 -4 billion years

Life from Outer Space:

Astronomers and astrobiologists estimate that high above Earth there is an estimated 100 – 400 metric tons of cosmic dusts peppering down on Earth every day, some of which are carriers of viruses or some life forms.

Almost all do not require any living host to “survive” their long journey in space in suspended animation at a frigid temperature of near absolute zero temperature for 4.5 billion years since these precursor biomolecules of life are not living and they do not need air, food, water or any energy to keep them “alive” in latent suspended animation. They may remain inactive on space fomites for thousands of millions of years kept at just 3 Kelvin, a temperature so cold where even all molecular movement freezes. 

There is some possibility that these coronaviruses may not have originated on Earth but may have been seeded  on this Planet from outer space although some scientist refuted this possibility.

The first scientist who proposed the panspermia origin of life as coming from another world was Arrhenius who in 1903 visualized that life may have been seeded to earth by spores carried by meteorites.

The Panspermia theory was also supported in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Sir Fred Hoyle, the renowned British cosmologist and mathematician together with Cambridge University physicist  Chandra Wickramasinghe who suggested that Earth is continuously been bombarded by pathogenic bacteria and viruses from space

It is possible to conceive even before all life began on Earth 3500 million years ago viruses were already here 300 million years earlier when the first RNA world (chemical fossils) appeared as viruses without any living life then to host them.

They all “survived” for a few thousand million years on fomite which was the  sterile ancient oceans  and on a sterile land so to speak.

The first prebiotic chemistry was only possible 4000 million years ago after the accretion of earth.

Bacteria and photosynthesis only appeared 3,500 million years ago and the first eukaryotes and sexual reproduction was possible only between 2,700 – 1,900 million years ago.

Once again, there were no living creatures then, and yet the viruses were already there.

They were thriving in the primordial oceans considered as sterile and void of all life, and yet these viruses were able to “survive”

Abiogenesis is the natural process of life arising from non-living matter, and to the best of my knowledge on the origin of life this is highly improbable, and this also applies to coronaviruses including Covid-19

Summary:

The duration of time outside a living host such as on fomite is indeterminable. Their existence may have already been sewage water, in the ancient oceans and seas for a few billion years, until they undergo multiple mutations into various forms of viruses, each better adapted by Natural Selection, and yet remain infective for long periods of time.

Then they jumped from one animal species to another until around 2003 they emerged as SARS in humans, after which they may have undergone further mutations in other animal such as camels, before emerging  as MERS

They may have undergone further mutations in bats, pangolins and civet cats before visiting humans as our guests under favorable conditions.

I hope my brief explanation answers your question. It would be much better for me to give an oral answer or a slide presentation to your question where I can fill in the necessary technical details for scientists to elaborate on them.  

I suppose this short and simple account should suffice for the time being

Thank you once again for your question and for sharing your question

I would appreciate if you could write a comment here

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