November 2, 2020

Modeling the Load of SARS-CoV-2 Virus in Human Expelled Particles during Coughing and Speaking

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Transmission

Keywords (Tags): transmission

A study using differential equations to describe the evolution of respiratory droplets, using SARS-CoV-2 as an example, found that there is no apparent size boundary between expelled particles that fall to the ground quickly versus those that can remain airborne. The simulation showed that after ten seconds of a cough, 5.1% of virus-containing particles were below the 5µm threshold used to designate classification of “airborne”, and 59.5% of these virus-containing particles were able to remain airborne. Masking, however, can effectively block around 94% of the viruses that may otherwise remain airborne after 10 seconds. The authors challenge the dichotomy of using aerosols and droplets to separate the modes of disease transmission.

Wang et al. (Oct 30, 2020). Modeling the Load of SARS-CoV-2 Virus in Human Expelled Particles during Coughing and Speaking. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241539