Washington : A study published in the journal PLOS ONE showed that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, becomes almost immediately impractical when stored on cash notes.
Contrary to previous understanding of reducing the use of cash notes to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the study showed that the virus shows greater stability on plastic money cards, with live virus detection even 48 hours after initial deposit. is applied.
The study further emphasized that the use of credit and debit cards instead of cash prevention of covid-19 The remedy is not appropriate.
However, the study did not detect any viable virus on randomly sampled cash or cards, the researchers said.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, we had this huge outcry for businesses to stop using cash; all of these businesses followed this advice,” said study author Richard Robison, a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU). That’s right we’re only credit cards.” in America.
“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, where are the data to support this?’ And there just wasn’t anyone. We decided to see if it was logical, and found out it wasn’t,” Robison said.
Researchers crafted a bunch of 1 US dollar bills, quarters, pennies and credit cards and vaccinated with the money SARS-CoV-2,
Cash, coins and cards were sampled and subsequently tested for virus detection at four time points: 30 minutes, four hours, 24 hours and 48 hours.
Researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 was difficult to detect even 30 minutes after placing it on a dollar bill.
The study found that the virus was reduced by 99.9993% at the 30-minute mark.
Researchers tested again after 24 and 48 hours and found no live virus on the notes. In contrast, the virus reduced money cards by only 90% at the 30-minute mark, he said.
While this reduction rate increased to 99.6% by four hours and 99.96 per cent in 24 hours, the live virus was still detectable on the money card after 48 hours.
The coins performed similarly to plastic cards, with a strong initial reduction in virus presence, yet still testing positive for live virus after 24 and 48 hours.
Researchers were surprised by the volatility of paper banknotes, which in the US are a blend of 75% cotton and 25% linen.
After putting 10 lakh viable virus particles on the bills, they did not find any virus even after 24 hours.
The research team also obtained fresh samples of USD 1 cash bills, quarters and pennies from around BYU’s campus and local restaurants to test for the presence of the virus.
Within an hour of receiving the money, the researchers systematically cleaned the surfaces and edges of cash or coins with a sterile cotton swab.
They also wiped out a collection of money cards, and found no SARS-CoV-2 RNA on banknotes or coins and only low level virus on money cards.
“This pandemic has been infamous for people making decisions without data,” Robison said.
He said, “We have these people just saying things and a large number of organizations follow it blindly without any data. It turns out that in this case, they just went in the wrong direction.”