Study finds the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not viable on cash banknotes

> A new study ... finds that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is almost immediately nonviable if deposited on a cash banknote. The virus actually shows greater stability on plastic money cards, with the live virus still being detected 48 hours after initial deposition, but no viable virus was detected on either cash or card that was randomly sampled in the study

> cash, coins and cards were... sampled and tested for virus detection at four time points afterwards: at 30 minutes, 4 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours. // ... SARS-CoV-2 was difficult to detect on the dollar bills even just 30 minutes after being placed there ... the virus was reduced by 99.9993% at the 30 minute mark. ... In contrast, the virus only reduced 90% on money cards at the 30-minute mark

> Researchers were surprised by the instability of the paper banknotes (which in the U.S. are a blend of ~75% cotton and 25% linen) — after putting 1 million viable virus particles on the bills, they couldn't find any virus at all after 24 hours

> "This pandemic has been infamous for people making decisions with no data," [Richard Robison, a BYU professor of microbiology and molecular biology] said. "We have these people just saying things and massive numbers of organizations just follow it blindly without any data. It turns out in this case, they went precisely the wrong direction"

Original research article: Colleen R. Newey et al, Presence and stability of SARS-CoV-2 on environmental currency and money cards in Utah reveals a lack of live virus, PLOS ONE (2022). https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263025

Looks like we won't need to launder money anymore.