The existence, spread, and strategies for environmental monitoring and control of SARS-CoV-2 in environmental media

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the most influential infectious disease to emerge in the early 21st cen-tury. The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a great many deaths and has had a negative impact on the world's economic development. The etiological agent of COVID-19 is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2, which is highly infectious and variable, can be transmitted through different envi-ronmental media (gaseous, liquid, and solid). There are many unanswered questions surrounding this virus. This review summarizes the current knowledge on the latest global COVID-19 epidemic situation, SARS-CoV-2 variants, the progress in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine use, and the existence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 in gaseous, liquid, and solid media, with particular emphasis on the prevention and control of further spread of the disease. This re-view aims to help people worldwide to become more familiar with the transmission characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 in environmental media, so as targeted measures to fight the epidemic, reduce deaths, and restore the economy can be implemented under the pressure of global SARS-CoV-2 vaccine shortages. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.