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Swabbing of bank machines, shop-door handles and other frequently touched surfaces in a US city revealed that 8% of samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material, but that material was present in small amounts. Amy Pickering at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and her colleagues repeatedly sampled 33 surfaces in public places in Somerville, Massachusetts (A. P. Harvey et al. Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.org/fgx9; 2020). The handles of a rubbish bin and a liquor store were the most frequently riddled with coronavirus RNA. All samples showed only “low-level” contamination, and the infection risk from touching one of the contaminated surfaces is low, the researchers say. The team found that the percentage of positive samples in one postal district peaked roughly 7 days before a spike in COVID-19 cases in the same district. Sampling of heavily touched surfaces might provide a warning of a surge of infections, the authors write.
Preprint of the study available at medRxiv (Nov. 1, 2020):
