A new study shows COVID-19's RNA can linger up to a month in household dust.
Just as municipalities have tested wastewater for COVID-19 to determine how widespread the virus might be within their community, scientists think dust monitoring could be done on a smaller scale to test for COVID-19 in nursing homes, hospitals or schools. In addition, testing indoor dust would likely be less expensive than testing wastewater and less invasive than routinely testing individuals.
"We wanted to demonstrate that dust could be complementary to wastewater for surveillance," said Karen Dannemiller, senior author of the study. "Wastewater is great for a large population, but not everybody sheds the virus in feces, and you have to collect wastewater samples, which not everyone wants to do. People are already vacuuming these rooms, so dust may be a good option for some groups."
SOURCE: Science Daily April 13, 2021