TIRANA, March 24 /ATA/ The virus is not being transmitted via banknotes
In an official newsletter, the International Currency Association (ICA) welcomes the WHO’s retraction of its recommendation to avoid banknotes and pay cashless because of COVID-19 virus. There is no evidence that banknotes are more strongly contaminated than any other surface and the dominating opinion among the medical experts is that the virus is not being transmitted via banknotes.
All surfaces can carry the COVID-19 virus and any other bacteria and viruses. That naturally includes banknotes, and cards, mobile phones, tables, keyboards, doorknobs, shopping carts. All devices where people punch in their PINs, elevator buttons, handrails, receipts, food wrappings. The list is endless.
To single out banknotes is random. Several central banks, the experts on cash, see no evidence for banknotes transmitting the virus. The same goes for medical experts e.g. prof. Jurgen Haas, the head of infection medicine at the University of Edinburgh or Doctor Christine Tait-Burkard, an expert in infection and immunity at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh. The view is bein confirmed by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and German Robert Koch Institute, both of which say no reports of infections from contact with dry surfaces are known for corona viruses.
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