Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day one and eighty four since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story. Scientists are learning more about how long the virus lingers in all kinds of places, from face masks to concrete sidewalks. They're also testing what weather conditions it likes best. Their findings could indicate we're in for a frightening winter. But first, here's what happened in virus news today.
The newest COVID nineteen vaccine candidate to start human testing is the first where volunteers won't get a painful injection. Instead, they'll receive a spray through the nose. This week, China approved phase one human testing for a nasal spray vaccine developed by researchers at Jaman University, Hong Kong University, and vaccine maker Beijing one tie Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Intranasal spray is recommended for children as well as adults who want
to avoid the more common needle injection. Scientists around the world are working on sprays as an alternative to muscle jabs for all sorts of vaccines. In the UK coronavirus is spreading exponentially again for the first time in months. It's prompting government representatives to urge the public to limit social activities. The government believes the so called R rate, the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus onto, is somewhere between one and one point two.
It was last above one in March. A separate study by Imperial College found the virus is now doubling every seven to eight days. Finally, Discount clothing stores Century twenty one is the latest retail industry casualty of the virus, but the New York chain says it should have survived the pandemic because it had business interruption insurance. Instead, insurers refuse to pay, and Century twenty one is shutting down
after almost sixty years in business. More than one thousand companies have found themselves in the same predicament and have sued, with cases playing out across the US and the UK. Insurers are arguing they don't have to pay out on pandemic claims, in part because the coronavirus didn't damage property. And now for today's main story, we're constantly learning about the stars Covey two virus, what it does to the human body, how it spreads, and why it seems to
transmit more readily in certain situations compared with others. Knowing how long the virus lives under different conditions is crucial for understanding the drivers of transmission and how to stop it. Bloomberg Senior editor Jason Gale spoke with a scientist looking into some of these critical questions, and his answers don't bode well for winter in the northern hemisphere. Don't do you can Rist is the Regents Distinguished Professor at Kansas
State University in Manhattan, Kansas. He's a German born veterinarian who's been studying viruses since the nineteen eighties when the pandemic hit. You're gonna on his team. We're trying to understand how a deadly pig virus could spread through a feed mill under various climatic conditions. We just finished a beautiful feet experiment and a feed mill, and we could. They told us stop, so you can change tech and
got his team working on SASKOV two. Instead. They looked at how long the coronavirus can survive on a dozen different surfaces and in different weather They used an incubator to mimic the typical indoor environment as well as average weather conditions in the fall and in the summer, and so I as a virologist, I never thought I would go to a to the National Weather Service website and look up all these data for a city like ours, which is in the middle of the middle of the
United States. Against team work with live coronavirus particles in a hermetically sealed bio containment lab to study weather affects. And then we tested the stuff city of sauce coos to on different surfaces, different steel surfaces, cardboard, plastics, and mass tivas, you name it. I think twelve different surfaces, cloths, the t shirts we bought, um and so on. And then we look what is the difference if you have a summer condition versus a spring condition, and the difference
was significant. The measurement that Yogan's group focused on was the viruses biological half life, that's the time it takes for half of the virus particles or very once to die. The found that in summer the virus disintegrates and inactivates much faster. The results were released ahead of publication and peer review at the end of August, the house life
is much shorter than in spring and fall. Now we are coming to the fault condition soon and the virus will stay stay around longer, and it will survive longer under these fault conditions on the same surf fish. I was surprised at our masks. The tiwex were on the top, and that's what we were all day. Is a synthetic polyethylene material that's used to make a lot of personal
protective equipment. So for the time act, we had thirty one point eight hours half life in spring and fall, and in summer it was only four point six hours. Significant the sas COVT virus survived on the protective material almost seven times longer under fall conditions than summer. On ninety respirator masks, which are more protective than surgical masks, the virus survived for twenty seven point eight hours in cooler conditions versus four point four hours in summer. That's
more than six times longer. And now we continue with the winter condition, and I believe it's worse than we saw the same or even worse than we saw with conditions so um and that's important for the epidemiologist and
you know the people. Because we have to understand how long the virus survives in different environment and if the virus survives in a winter environment longer than the summer environment, we already know the infectious The pressure is higher in these under the under winter conditions compared to summer conditions, and vice versa. We had some famous predictions earlier in the pandemic that the virus would miraculously disappear in the
Northern Hemisphere spring. Five months later, the virus is still infecting tens of thousands of people each day. That doesn't bode well for what might happen when the temperature and humidity drop and people are back gathering indoors. So if we couldn't control it very well during the summer, we
are in for a big surprise. And now we go continue these studies not only in surfaces, but on biologic fluids and certain body fluids, tears, nasal secretions, alive, you're in feces, what what what is an environmental virus like and what is an environment the virus pussis like Youans group also study houseflies and their propensity to distribute the coronavirus.
They'll examine whether these pesky insects that can flit from a soil tissue to let us leave to a mouth are capable of picking up infectious virus particles, and if so, how far and wide they can transport them? As gross as all these sounds that research will help us understand the coronavirus better and to inform policies and mitigation strategies that will prevent infections. What is virus niche? Where can
they survive for a long time? And how can these this these niches play a role in the epidemiology and we are having cases where they don't know where it comes from because they were not in close contacts or what are the what the reasons for that? And we have to address that in a scientifically, well defined in in a well defined way, not just secually. And so we want to contribute a little bit to this kind
of question which are critical for us to understand. The coronavirus has by no means given up all its secrets. So many mysteries remain. But with thousands of scientists around the world standing the way it spreads and mains, every day, we're gaining new clues and insights to help stop it. That was Jason Gale, and that's it for our show today.
For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash Coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. Yeah. The Prognosis Alia edition is produced by Topher foreheads Jordan Gospoure, Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Jason Gale. Original music by Leo Cedrin. Our editors
are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesca Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.