| Property | Value |
|---|
|
?:abstract
|
-
The COVID-19 pandemic is largely caused by airborne transmission, a phenomenon that rapidly gained the attention of the scientific community. Social distancing is of paramount importance to limit the spread of the disease, but to design social distancing rules on a scientific basis the process of dispersal of virus-containing respiratory droplets must be understood. Here, we demonstrate that available knowledge is largely inadequate to make predictions on the reach of infectious droplets emitted during a cough and on their infectious potential. We follow the position and evaporation of thousands of respiratory droplets by massive state-of-the-art numerical simulations of the airflow caused by a typical cough. We find that different initial distributions of droplet size taken from literature and different ambient relative humidity lead to opposite conclusions: (1) most versus none of the viral content settles in the first 1–2 m; (2) viruses are carried entirely on dry nuclei versus on liquid droplets; (3) small droplets travel less than [Formula: see text] versus more than [Formula: see text] . We point to two key issues that need to be addressed urgently in order to provide a scientific foundation to social distancing rules: (I1) a careful characterisation of the initial distribution of droplet sizes; (I2) the infectious potential of viruses carried on dry nuclei versus liquid droplets.
|
|
?:creator
|
|
|
?:doi
|
|
|
?:doi
|
-
10.1038/s41598-020-80078-7
|
|
?:journal
|
|
|
?:license
|
|
|
?:pdf_json_files
|
-
document_parses/pdf_json/125a5b02bfb24a2f9674d7a354e5e1fcb122251f.json
|
|
?:pmc_json_files
|
-
document_parses/pmc_json/PMC7773744.xml.json
|
|
?:pmcid
|
|
|
?:pmid
|
|
|
?:pmid
|
|
|
?:publication_isRelatedTo_Disease
|
|
|
?:sha_id
|
|
|
?:source
|
|
|
?:title
|
-
Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
|
|
?:type
|
|
|
?:year
|
|
![[This page as RDF]](https://research.tib.eu/covid-19/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}