COVID-19: ISS Spinning 400Km Above Earth Is The Safest Place For Humans Right Now

With COVID-19 spread across the world, we¡¯re trying our best to be safe. From washing hands regularly to sanitising it every now and then and practising social distancing, we¡¯re not leaving any stones unturned.

Reuters

Amidst this, you might have wondered, which place on this planet will keep you safe from the novel coronavirus -- a place where you don¡¯t really have to be so anxious about this coronavirus. While the whole planet isn¡¯t safe from this novel coronavirus, ISS right now is the safest place to be.

This is according to Luis Zea, a researcher from BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder, in a conversation with Newsweek. ¡°'This comes from the fact that the novel coronavirus can only survive for short periods of time on surfaces and an infected person would likely be screened and diagnosed during the quarantine period astronauts go through prior to launch.¡±

NASA

It goes without saying that astronauts undergo a strict set of guidelines during their training to go aboard the ISS. Apart from rigorous survival training among several other things, they¡¯re also constantly monitored for their health.

The process is called ¡®health stabilisation¡¯ where crews heading to the ISS undergo a physical exam 10 days before the launch. The examination is thorough, involving several tests to fully determine astronauts health levels and that he¡¯s not infected with any disease.

Additionally, if everything comes negative, the individual is asked to administer a two-week self-quarantine to figure out if he/she is incubating any illness. Only after all the clearance, they¡¯re permitted to board the ship.

NASA

Even the stuff that goes to the ISS are cleaned and sterilised. According to Zea, ¡°A stringent requirement for sterilization exists for spacecraft that will land on other celestial bodies to ensure that, in the future when we 'sniff' more molecules indicative of potential life, we are not sniffing something that a previous spacecraft brought into that planet.¡±

However, this wasn¡¯t the case in NASA¡¯s initial days. In 1968, Walt Cunningham from the Apollo 7 Mission caught cold in space, that truly affected his performance on the mission, while also endangering lives of other astronauts in Space. NASA then realised to put emphasis on health safety preparation.

But he also stated that humans cannot run away from bacteria as microbes travel with the crew, ¡°In the case of the ISS, microbes travel with the crew, like it or not. In fact, a human has more bacterial cells in and on their body than their own cells, so it doesn't matter where we go, bacteria will accompany us.¡±