With worldwide coronavirus cases now at over 2.7 million, concerns about the disease are now widespread.
While many experts have advised that washing your clothes on a hot wash can help to kill the bug, a new study suggests that this isn’t the case.
The study, led by researchers at Aix-Marseille University, found that the virus can actually survive at temperatures up to 92°C.
In the study, the team used cells from a coronavirus patient in Berlin to test the environments in which it could survive.
As part of one test, the researchers slowly heated the cells to 60°C.
The results showed that the virus could survive and replicate at this temperature in non-sterile environments.
The researchers then heated the virus further to 92°C, and found that it could survive for up to 15 minutes.
The results raise concerns about how coronavirus is being handled by researchers in laboratories.
Swabs are usually heated to 60°C for 30 minutes to be ‘disinfected’, but the findings suggest that this may not be sufficient.
The researchers wrote: “The results presented in this study should help to choose the best suited protocol for inactivation in order to prevent exposure of laboratory personnel in charge of direct and indirect detection of Sars-CoV-2 for diagnostic purpose.”
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Meanwhile, the findings also indicate that even a hot wash may not be enough to kill coronavirus if it is on your clothes.
Based on the findings, it may be wise to wash your clothes on high heat with added bleach.
The NHS advises: “Normal washing of clothes will reduce the risk of germs being transmitted. In certain situations clothes should be washed at higher than normal temperatures and with a bleach-based product to minimise the transmission risk as much as possible.”
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