During a media availability with Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, Oxiris Barbot , MD, the Commissioner of Health for New York City, said: "This is a novel virus that we're still learning a lot about, and there is still science that is coming out. You will find in the literature that in a lab setting you can have the virus live up to a couple of hours, but in every day world scenarios what we're learning from our partners from around the globe is that typically, it's in the range of minutes," she explained. "Now as we learn more that range of minutes may shift to the right or to the left but I think focusing on the number of minutes is the wrong place to focus."