Abstract
The
COVID-19 pandemic has stressed healthcare systems and supply lines, forcing
medical doctors to risk infection by decontaminating and reusing single-use
medical personal protective equipment. The uncertain future of the pandemic is
compounded by limited data on the ability of the responsible virus, SARS-CoV-2,
to survive across various climates, preventing epidemiologists from accurately
modeling its spread. However, a detailed thermodynamic analysis of experimental
data on the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 and related coronaviruses can enable a
fundamental understanding of their thermal degradation that will help model the
COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate future outbreaks. This paper introduces a
thermodynamic model that synthesizes existing data into an analytical framework
built on first principles, including the rate law and the Arrhenius equation,
to accurately predict the temperature-dependent inactivation of coronaviruses.
The model provides much-needed thermal decontamination guidelines for personal
protective equipment, including masks. For example, at 70 °C, a 3-log (99.9%)
reduction in virus concentration can be achieved in ≈ 3 minutes and can be
performed in most home ovens without reducing the efficacy of typical N95
masks. The model will also allow for epidemiologists to incorporate the
lifetime of SARS-CoV-2 as a continuous function of environmental temperature
into models forecasting the spread of coronaviruses across different climates
and seasons.