Researchers have investigated how temperatures and humidity affect the structure of individual SARS-Cov-2 virus-like particles on surfaces. They discovered moderate temperature increases degraded virus' structure, while humidity had little impact. In order to remain infectious, the SARS-Cov-2 membrane needs a specific web of proteins arranged in a particular order. When that structure falls apart, it becomes less infectious. This suggests that as temperatures begin to drop, particles on surfaces will remain infectious longer. Their research is published in the journal Biochemical Biophysical Research Communications.
"You would expect that temperature makes a huge difference, and that's what we saw. To the point where the packaging of the virus was completely destroyed by even moderate temperature increases," said Michael Vershinin, assistant professor at the University of Utah and co-senior author of the paper. "What's surprising is how little heat was needed to break them down--surfaces that are warm to the touch, but not hot. The packaging of this virus is very sensitive to temperature."
"When it comes to fighting the spread of this virus, you kind of have to fight every particle individually. And so you need to understand what makes each individual particle degrade," Vershinin continued. "People are also working on vaccines and are trying to understand how the virus is recognized? All of these questions are single-particle questions. And if you understand that, then that enables you to fight a hoard of them."