Frequent wearing of a mask, staying six-feet apart, and avoiding huge social gatherings and events are just a few of the many things almost the entire world is doing now to help mitigate COVID-19.
These are the top public health guidelines which almost everyone complies with as we await a safe and efficient vaccine against the virus that has now infected more than 58 million and killed over 1.3 million people globally.
Nevertheless, as colder climate forces people to stay indoors most of the time, hindering or preventing transmission of the disease is likely to become more difficult than ever.
During the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics, scientists presented a range of research examining the aerodynamics of infectious disease.
Their study findings propose strategies for reducing risk according to a rigorous understanding of the manner infectious particles "mix with air in confined spaces."
Droplets From Coughing and Sneezing
Studies early in the pandemic focused on the role which large and fast-falling droplets produced through coughing and sneezing.
Nonetheless, documented super-spreader events implied that "airborne transmission of tiny particles" from daily activities may be a dangerous route of contagion, as well.
Previous reports had it that, for instance, out of 61 singers in Washington state, 53 were infected following two-and-a-half hours of choir rehearsal in March.
In addition, out of 67 passengers who stated inside a bus with an individual infected with COVID-19 in Zhejiang Province, China, for two hours, 24 tested positive after.
According to a chemical engineer at the University of California, Davis, William Ristenpart, he found that people are speaking or singing aloud, they are producing radically large numbers of micron-sized particles than they are using a normal voice.
The researchers explained, the particles produced from yelling greatly exceed the number yielded while coughing. Additionally, in guinea pigs, the study authors found influenza could spread through "contaminated dust particles."
They added, "if the same is true for the SARS-CoV-2," the object then that discharge "contaminated dust-like tissues" may posture a risk.
Strategies to Reduce Spread of the Virus
Abhishek Kumar, Jean Hertzberg, as well as other University of Colorado, Boulder researchers focused on how COVID-19 might spread during a music performance.
Together, they discussed results from trials designed to measure the emission of aerosol from instrumentalists.
Hertzberg said everyone "was very worried about flutes early on" However, the researcher added, it turns out that some musical instruments, like flutes, do not generate that much.
Other instruments, on the other hand, such as oboes and clarinets, which feature wet-vibrating surfaces, tend to emit copious aerosols.
The researchers said the good news is that the spread of the virus during these events can be controlled. When a surgical mask is put over a clarinet or trumpet's bell, it lessens the "amount of aerosol back down" to degrees in a normal voice's tone.
Safety Guideline
Mathematicians Martin Bazant and John Bush or Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggested a new safety guideline built on currently-available models of airborne transmission of diseases to determine maximum exposure levels in various indoor environments.
Their guideline relies on a matric known as "cumulative exposure time," determined by the multiplication of the number of individuals in a room by the length of time of exposure.
The maximum relies on the size and rate of ventilation inside the room, face-covering of those inside it, the level of infection of aerosol particles, and other factors.
For easy facilitation of the guideline's implementation, the study investigators worked with Kasim Khan, a chemical engineer, to develop a mobile application and online spreadsheet that people can use to measure the transmission risk in a variety of settings.
The MIT mathematicians wrote in a forthcoming paper currently being worked on. Staying six feet apart provides little shield from "pathogen-bearing aerosol droplets" adequately small to be incessantly mixed through an indoor space.
Lastly, the researchers found that a "better, flow-dynamics-based understanding" of the manner infected particles move through a room may eventually produce strategies for reduction of transmission.
