That depends on the virus, but generally speaking, COVID and other respiratory viruses don't seem to survive longer than 3 days on surfaces in ideal conditions and degrade much, much faster in the natural environment. There is even some evidence your skin naturally serves somewhat of a disinfectant and kills flu virus pretty rapidly (
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/48/3/285/304169).
That being said, you should still wash your hands.
chaoticneutral t1_ixudt9s wrote
Reply to comment by Seicair in How soon after exposure is the flu contagious? by AcJc_0604
That depends on the virus, but generally speaking, COVID and other respiratory viruses don't seem to survive longer than 3 days on surfaces in ideal conditions and degrade much, much faster in the natural environment. There is even some evidence your skin naturally serves somewhat of a disinfectant and kills flu virus pretty rapidly ( https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/48/3/285/304169).
That being said, you should still wash your hands.