Study : Omicron survives 21 days over skin and 8 days over plastic
A study conducted by the researchers from the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan has now claimed that the Omiron variant of coronavirus can remain alive on skin and plastic more than the earlier variants of the virus like Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma. The study is yet to be peer-reviewed and has been posted recently on BioRxiv.
According to the findings, Omicron can remain alive on the skin for over 21 hours and more than eight days on any plastic surface. This might be the reason why Omicron is spreading faster compared to other strains, the study said.
“This study showed that Omicron has the highest environmental stability among VOCs, which might be one of the factors that have allowed the variant to replace the Delta variant and spread rapidly,” they said.
The findings state that average survival times of the original strain os 56 hours, Alpha (191.3 hours), Beta (156.6 hours), Gamma (59.3 hours) and Delta (114 hours). Whereas Omicron survives for 193.5 hours, according to the researchers.
