Elsevier

Public Health in Practice

Volume 1, November 2020, 100029
Public Health in Practice

Original Research
Sports balls as potential SARS-CoV-2 transmission vectors

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhip.2020.100029Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Objects passed from one player to another have not been assessed for their ability to transmit severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We found that the surface of sport balls, notably a football, tennis ball, golf ball, and cricket ball could not harbour inactivated virus when it was swabbed onto the surface, even for 30 ​s. However, when high concentrations of 5000 ​dC/mL and 10,000 ​dC/mL are directly pipetted onto the balls, it could be detected after for short time periods. Sports objects can only harbour inactivated SARS-CoV-2 under specific, directly transferred conditions, but wiping with a dry tissue or moist ‘baby wipe’ or dropping and rolling the balls removes all detectable viral traces. This has helpful implications to sporting events.

Keywords

Sports
SARS-CoV-2
COVID-19
Transmission
Cricket
Football
Tennis
Golf

Cited by (0)

1

Co-senior author.