Using UV radiation to steralize surfaces is a common practice in many labs that do tissue culture work.
THere are some problems with this. RNA viruses are most easilly destroyed by UV, single stranted DNA should also be pretty vulnerable… assuming of couse that the interactiosn between the DNA strands in double stranded DNA would make it so more energy was required to cause point deletions and strand breaks.
Then you have enveloped vs unenveloped viruses. Enveloped viruses have a plasmid membrane surrounding the viral protein core which is another layer of protection to block UV radiation.
Bacteria on the other hand, have both a membrane and a thick cell wall and I imagine would be less vulnerable to UV radiation. They are also fully competent organisms with DNA repair mechanisms (Mut S … or Mut L deals with point deletions right?)
Some labs run the UV lamps in their hoods overnight to ‘steralize’ the hood of contaminates. Even 16 hrs of a special, powerful UV light doesn’t kill everything in the hood. I highly doubt that a bright sunny day will really make much difference.
Especially when you consider an aerosol pathogen. Those virions are going to be covered in mucous most likely, which will provide another layer of protection against UV radiation.
The problem is nobody knows what the pathogen is. Yes there are some virii that are unbelievably unstable outside the human body. HIV is one, it has a half life of min outside of an organism. Even keeping viral samples I use in my research on ice when they are out of the -80 (the sample never goes over 4C for more than 30 seconds) I’m luckly if I can remove a sample from the -80 TWICE and still have 90% of the origional infectivity.
Basically it’s a crap shoot.
The lab I work in DOESN’T use UV lights to steralize anything.
I wouldn’t rely on sunlight to help keep me safe if there was a large scale outbreak of this disease near me. I’d abide by CDC recommendations, they’ve got the experience in this matter.
One thing. If someone starts selling “air filters to keep your home free of this virus” that are over .05um HEPA filters, they’re scamming you. Virii can range in size from 100-10 nm so a .2um filter stops fungus, mold and bacteria but not viral particles.