Some strains of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can survive temperatures of 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) for an hour, researchers have found. To kill the virus in a laboratory setting, the team had to heat it to 92 degrees Celsius (197 degrees Fahrenheit) for 15 minutes.
The study, which appears on the pre-print website bioRxiv, has not been published in a scientific journal and has not been peer reviewed by experts, so the findings should be considered with caution.
The team, led by Boris Pastorino, from the Emerging Viral Diseases Unit at Aix-Marseille University, in France, were looking at what heating and chemical requirements are needed to inactivate the virus. They were looking at the risk the virus poses to laboratory workers who are regularly in contact with SARS-CoV-2.
