Photoinactivation of the Coronavirus Surrogate phi6 by Visible Light.

To stop the coronavirus spread, new inactivation approaches are being sought that can also be applied in the presence of humans or even on humans. Here, we investigate the effect of visible violet light with a wavelength of 405 nm on the coronavirus surrogate phi6 in two aqueous solutions that are free of photosensitizers. A dose of 1 300 J/cm2 of 405 nm irradiation reduces the phi6 plaque forming unit concentration by three log-levels. The next step should be similar visible light photoinactivation investigations on coronaviruses, which cannot be performed in our lab.