PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Ryohei Hirose AU - Yoshito Itoh AU - Hiroshi Ikegaya AU - Hajime Miyazaki AU - Naoto Watanabe AU - Takuma Yoshida AU - Risa Bandou AU - Tomo Daidoji AU - Takaaki Nakaya TI - Differences in environmental stability among SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: Omicron has higher stability AID - 10.1101/2022.01.18.476607 DP - 2022 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 2022.01.18.476607 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/19/2022.01.18.476607.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/19/2022.01.18.476607.full AB - We analyzed the differences in viral environmental stability between the SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain and all variants of concern (VOCs). On plastic and skin surfaces, Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants exhibited more than two-fold longer survival than the Wuhan strain and maintained infectivity for more than 16 h on skin surfaces. The high environmental stability of these VOCs could increase the risk of contact transmission and contribute to their spread.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.