TY - JOUR T1 - The effect of temperature and humidity on the stability of SARS-CoV-2 and other enveloped viruses JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.10.16.341883 SP - 2020.10.16.341883 AU - Dylan H. Morris AU - Kwe Claude Yinda AU - Amandine Gamble AU - Fernando W. Rossine AU - Qishen Huang AU - Trenton Bushmaker AU - Robert J. Fischer AU - M. Jeremiah Matson AU - Neeltje van Doremalen AU - Peter J. Vikesland AU - Linsey C. Marr AU - Vincent J. Munster AU - James O. Lloyd-Smith Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/13/2020.10.16.341883.abstract N2 - Understanding the impact of environmental conditions on virus viability and transmission potential is crucial to anticipating epidemic dynamics and designing mitigation strategies. Ambient temperature and humidity are known to have strong effects on the environmental stability of viruses, but a general quantitative understanding of how temperature and humidity affect virus stability has remained elusive. We characterize the stability of SARS-CoV-2 on an inert surface at a variety of temperature and humidity conditions, and introduce a mechanistic model that enables accurate prediction of virus stability in unobserved conditions. We find that SARS-CoV-2 survives better at low temperatures and extreme relative humidities; median estimated virus half-life was more than 24 hours at 10 °C and 40 % RH, but approximately an hour and a half at 27 °C and 65 % RH. Moreover, our model predicts observations from other human coronaviruses and other studies of SARS-CoV-2, suggesting the existence of shared mechanisms that determine environmental stability across a number of enveloped viruses. Our results highlight scenarios of particular transmission risk and point to broad strategies for pandemic mitigation, while opening new frontiers for the mechanistic study of viral transmission.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -