Study: Covid infection from banknotes and coins unlikely
LONDON: While the fear of getting Covid infection from banknotes and coins has driven much more contactless payments during the pandemic, researchers say the risk is far too less.
Experts at the European Central Bank, in collaboration with researchers at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum in Germany, wanted to clarify how long do coronaviruses remain infectious on banknotes and coins? Is it possible to become infected through contact with cash?
The team treated various euro coins and banknotes with virus solutions of different concentrations and over several days observed how long infectious virus was still detectable. A stainless-steel surface served as a control in each case.
While infectious virus was still present on the stainless-steel surface after seven days, on the 10-euro banknote, it took only three days to completely disappear.
For the 10-cent, 1-euro, and 5-cent coins after six days, two days and one hour, respectively, no infectious virus was detectable.
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