What a new BYU study says about COVID-19 coronavirus and ‘dirty’ money

Twenty dollar bills are counted in North Andover, Massachusetts on June 15, 2018. A new study from Brigham Young University found not only that the coronavirus “is almost immediately nonviable” if transferred to a banknote, it actually lasts 48 hours or longer on a plastic credit card.

Elise Amendola, Associated Press

Remember when no one wanted to touch bills or coins out of fear of catching COVID-19, replacing what was seen as contaminated cash with credit cards?

A new study from Brigham Young University in Utah found not only that the coronavirus “is almost immediately nonviable” if transferred to a banknote, it actually lasts 48 hours or longer on a plastic credit card. Still “no viable virus” was found on either method of payment randomly sampled.

“Early in the pandemic, we had this massive outcry for businesses to stop using cash; all these businesses just followed this advice and said, ‘OK, we are credit card only,” Richard Robison, a BYU microbiology and molecular biology professor and the study’s author, said.

Robinson said he wondered just what that recommendation was based on.

“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, where are the data to support that?’ And there simply wasn’t any. We decided to see if it was rational or not, and turns out it was not,” he said.

Why flags are flying half-staff in Utah and the U.S.

Researchers, including BYU professor Julianne Grose and a group of undergraduate students, tested samples of $1 bills, quarters, pennies and credit cards inoculated with the virus, starting after 30 minutes, then after four hours, 24 hours and 48 hours..

The study published in PLOS ONE found the virus was difficult to detect on dollar bills even after just 30 minutes, reduced by 99.9993%. No live virus was found in tests conducted 24 and 48 hours later, surprising researchers who’d put 1 million viable virus particles on the bills, made of a blend of cotton and linen.

But coins and plastic cards still tested positive for low levels of the live virus after 24 and 48 hours.

Also tested were samples of bills and coins collected on the BYU campus and from local restaurants, as well as credit cards. No virus was detected on the bills or the coins within an hour, and only low levels showed up on the credit cards.

So many people were worried about using “dirty” money during the pandemic that there was actually a shortage of coinsnationwide due to …read more

Source:: Deseret News – Utah News

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