Scientists share how long coronavirus can live in smartphones

British scientists found out that the Chinese virus called coronavirus can live approximately one week on smartphone displays if recommended disinfection rules are not followed, Report states referencing to REN TV.

Professor William Quewill from Southampton University supposes that only hand washing can not prevent virus spread.

"You can wash your hands. But if you touch a display of your smartphone, and then touch your face, it can be a possible infecting way," he notes.

Professor Peter Hall from Waterloo University compared smartphones to Petry cups that are used for microbial colony cultivation. He recommended users to clean it up twice a day.

According to ''Dscout'', on average, a person touches his phone 2600 times each day, using it 76 times. Apple recommended rubbing smartphone displays with microfibre cloth with soapy water, but healthcare experts think that alcohol napkins protect from the virus much better than anything else.

The risk of getting an infection after touching the display is rather low, but all surfaces, dirtied with sputum after sneezing, coughing, and even breathing, may be potentially dangerous.

In December 2019, Chinese authorities declared a splash of pneumonia in the city of Wuhan. The causative agent of the disease is a new type of coronavirus that has a particular name - COVID-2019.

As many as 90,717 people have the infection globally. 3,115 people have died from the virus, and 47,871 have recovered.

The disease has claimed 2,943 lives in China; more than 47,000 people have recovered. In general, 80,151 cases of infection were recorded in the country.