SARS-CoV-2 RNA persists on surfaces following terminal disinfection of COVID-19 hospital isolation rooms

Non-pharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19: a systematic review on environmental control measures

The purpose of this review was to identify the effectiveness of environmental control (EC) non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 through conducting a systematic review. EC NPIs considered in this review are room ventilation, air filtration/cleaning, room occupancy, surface disinfection, barrier devices, [Formula: see text] monitoring and one-way-systems. Systematic searches of databases from Web of Science, Medline, EMBASE, preprint servers MedRxiv and BioRxiv were conducted in order to identify studies reported between 1 January 2020 and 1 December 2022. All articles reporting on the effectiveness of ventilation, air filtration/cleaning, room occupancy, surface disinfection, barrier devices, [Formula: see text] monitoring and one-way systems in reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 were retrieved and screened. In total, 13 971 articles were identified for screening. The initial title and abstract screening identified 1328 articles for full text review. Overall, 19 references provided evidence for the effectiveness of NPIs: 12 reported on ventilation, 4 on air cleaning devices, 5 on surface disinfection, 6 on room occupancy and 1 on screens/barriers. No studies were found that considered the effectiveness of [Formula: see text] monitoring or the implementation of one-way systems. Many of these studies were assessed to have critical risk of bias in at least one domain, largely due to confounding factors that could have affected the measured outcomes. As a result, there is low confidence in the findings. Evidence suggests that EC NPIs of ventilation, air cleaning devices and reduction in room-occupancy may have a role in reducing transmission in certain settings. However, the evidence was usually of low or very low quality and certainty, and hence the level of confidence ascribed to this conclusion is low. Based on the evidence found, it was not possible to draw any specific conclusions regarding the effectiveness of surface disinfection and the use of barrier devices. From these results, we further conclude that community agreed standards for well-designed epidemiological studies with low risk of bias are needed. Implementation of such standards would enable more confident assessment in the future of the effectiveness of EC NPIs in reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens in real-world settings. This article is part of the theme issue 'The effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the COVID-19 pandemic: the evidence'.

Disinfection and decontamination in the context of SARS-CoV-2-specific data

Given the high transmissibility of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as witnessed early in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, concerns arose with the existing methods for virus disinfection and decontamination. The need for SARS-CoV-2-specific data stimulated considerable research in this regard. Overall, SARS-CoV-2 is practically and equally susceptible to approaches for disinfection and decontamination that have been previously found for other human or animal coronaviruses. The latter have included techniques utilizing temperature modulation, pH extremes, irradiation, and chemical treatments. These physicochemical methods are a necessary adjunct to other prevention strategies, given the environmental and patient surface ubiquity of the virus. Classic studies of disinfection have also allowed for extrapolation to the eradication of the virus on human mucosal surfaces by some chemical means. Despite considerable laboratory study, practical field assessments are generally lacking and need to be encouraged to confirm the correlation of interventions with viral eradication and infection prevention. Transparency in the constitution and use of any method or chemical is also essential to furthering practical applications.