"President-elect Joe Biden is planning a $500,000 deep-clean of the White House, after Donald Trump’s inner circle went through multiple COVID-19 outbreaks in the fall."
The science is that SARS-CoV-2 is a fragile virus that becomes inactive after a day or two. So just waiting a weekend could save taxpayers half a million dollars.
@pete *Depending on conditions*. In the right conditions it can remain viable for quite some time (weeks?). No UV inside is favourable, though I doubt there's areas cold enough to preserve the virus (iirc the optimum for coronaviruses in general was around 4 C)
@kekcoin The lab tests I've seen have been able to identify viral RNA. But the ability to culture the virus goes away much sooner, because the viral particles loss their ability to infect quickly. Also, it's even less likely that a human would actually get an infection.
There's very little evidence that transmission by fomites (touch) is a significant problem. Besides, the politicians have been vaccinated.
