Possible reasons for faster spread of Omicron

The Omicron variant can remain on a person’s skin for over 21 hours and more than eight days on plastic surfaces, which may be contributing to its faster spread compared to other strains, a study by the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan said.

The yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study posted recently on the preprint repository BioRxiv found that the Alpha, Beta, Delta and Omicron variants exhibited more than two-fold longer survival on plastic and skin surfaces than the Wuhan strain.