Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing

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 proc...

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Autores principales:	M. E. Rosti, S. Olivieri, M. Cavaiola, A. Seminara, A. Mazzino
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2020
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6008c60c8fca464f86c5cfacefa21eb6
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6008c60c8fca464f86c5cfacefa21eb62021-12-02T15:12:47ZFluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing10.1038/s41598-020-80078-72045-2322https://doaj.org/article/6008c60c8fca464f86c5cfacefa21eb62020-12-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80078-7https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract 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 $$2.5\,{\mathrm{m}}$$ 2.5 m versus more than $$7.5\,{\mathrm{m}}$$ 7.5 m . 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.M. E. RostiS. OlivieriM. CavaiolaA. SeminaraA. MazzinoNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q M. E. Rosti S. Olivieri M. Cavaiola A. Seminara A. Mazzino Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
description	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 $$2.5\,{\mathrm{m}}$$ 2.5 m versus more than $$7.5\,{\mathrm{m}}$$ 7.5 m . 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.
format	article
author	M. E. Rosti S. Olivieri M. Cavaiola A. Seminara A. Mazzino
author_facet	M. E. Rosti S. Olivieri M. Cavaiola A. Seminara A. Mazzino
author_sort	M. E. Rosti
title	Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
title_short	Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
title_full	Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
title_fullStr	Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
title_full_unstemmed	Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
title_sort	fluid dynamics of covid-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/6008c60c8fca464f86c5cfacefa21eb6
work_keys_str_mv	AT merosti fluiddynamicsofcovid19airborneinfectionsuggestsurgentdataforascientificdesignofsocialdistancing AT solivieri fluiddynamicsofcovid19airborneinfectionsuggestsurgentdataforascientificdesignofsocialdistancing AT mcavaiola fluiddynamicsofcovid19airborneinfectionsuggestsurgentdataforascientificdesignofsocialdistancing AT aseminara fluiddynamicsofcovid19airborneinfectionsuggestsurgentdataforascientificdesignofsocialdistancing AT amazzino fluiddynamicsofcovid19airborneinfectionsuggestsurgentdataforascientificdesignofsocialdistancing
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Fluid dynamics of COVID-19 airborne infection suggests urgent data for a scientific design of social distancing

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