It doesn’t take long for airborne coronavirus particles to make their way through a room. At first, only people sitting near an infected speaker are at high risk, but as the meeting or class goes on, the tiny aerosols can spread.
That doesn’t mean everyone faces the same level of risk, however.
As an engineer, I have been conducting experiments tracking how aerosols move, including those in the size range that can carry viruses.
What I’ve found is important to understand as more people return to universities, offices and restaurants and more meetings move indoors as temperatures fall. It points to the highest-risk areas in rooms and why proper ventilation is crucial.
As we saw this past week with President Donald Trump and others in Washington, the coronavirus can spread quickly in close quarters if precautions aren’t taken. University campuses have also been struggling with COVID-19. Cases among 18- to 22-year-olds more than doubled in the Midwest and Northeast after schools reopened in August.
As the case numbers rise, the risk to anyone who spends time in those rooms rises as well.
An Experiment Shows Who’s at Greatest Risk
Most current models describing the role of ventilation on the covid superspreaders talking where matters
