Study: Cough droplet can travel up to 6.6 metres

The researchers offer a more detailed picture of droplet dispersion as they incorporated the biological considerations of the virus, such as the nonvolatile content in droplet evaporation, into the modelling of the airborne dispersion of droplets. "An evaporating droplet retains the non-volatile viral content, so the viral loading is effectively increased," said author Hongying Li. "This means that evaporated droplets that become aerosols are more susceptible to be inhaled deep into the lungs, which causes infection lower down the respiratory tract, than larger unevaporated droplets".

The researchers used computational tools to solve complex mathematical formulations representing air flow and the airborne cough droplets around human bodies at various wind speeds and when impacted by other environmental factors. They also assessed the deposition profile on a person at certain proximity. The findings are greatly dependent on the environmental conditions, such as wind speed, humidity levels, and ambient air temperature, and based on assumptions made from existing scientific literature on the viability of the Covid-19 virus.

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