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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 25 2020, @10:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the Wear-your-masks! dept.

Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spreads more indoors at low humidity :

An Indo-German research team is now pointing out another aspect that has received little attention so far and could become particularly important in the next flu season: Indoor humidity. Physicists at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig and the CSIR National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi have been studying the physical properties of aerosol particles for years in order to better estimate their effects on air quality or cloud formation.

[...] Result: Air humidity influences the spread of corona viruses indoors in three different ways: (a) the behaviour of microorganisms within the virus droplets, (b) the survival or inactivation of the virus on the surfaces, and (c) the role of dry indoor air in the airborne transmission of viruses. Although, low humidity causes the droplets containing viruses to dry out more quickly, the survivability of the viruses still seems to remain high. The team concludes that other processes are more important for infection: "If the relative humidity of indoor air is below 40 percent, the particles emitted by infected people absorb less water, remain lighter, fly further through the room and are more likely to be inhaled by healthy people. In addition, dry air also makes the mucous membranes in our noses dry and more permeable to viruses," summarizes Dr. Ajit Ahlawat.

[...] At a higher humidity, the droplets grow faster, fall to the ground earlier and can be inhaled less by healthy people. "A humidity level of at least 40 percent in public buildings and local transport would therefore not only reduce the effects of COVID-19, but also of other viral diseases such as seasonal flu. Authorities should include the humidity factor in future indoor guidelines," demands Dr. Sumit Kumar Mishra of CSIR - National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi.

Journal Reference:
Ahlawat, A., Wiedensohler, A. and Mishra, S.K., An Overview on the Role of Relative Humidity in Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Indoor Environments [open], Aerosol and Air Quality Research (DOI: 10.4209/aaqr.2020.06.0302)


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bart on Tuesday August 25 2020, @03:11PM (1 child)

    by bart (2844) on Tuesday August 25 2020, @03:11PM (#1041638)

    Eminent Dutch statistician Maurice de Hond has been saying this for months on his site https://www.maurice.nl/covid-19-english/ [maurice.nl]

    The resulting recommendations of his data sleuthing don't really fit the standard WHO narrative, so often his posts get removed from LinkedIn, Youtube, you name it. But he makes a lot of sense, and his arguments and data are persuasive.

    In short, ventilation is the answer, and outdoor contamination pretty much doesn't happen, so all the 1 meter rules outside are completely useless.

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:05PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 25 2020, @06:05PM (#1041726) Journal

    The 1 meter rules aren't senseless. But the also aren't the be-all end-all. And it can be expensive to reengineer internal ventilation. It's not much sense giving advice that can't be followed.

    Yes, I'm rather sure that for COVID hand washing and surface sanitation is being overdone, and that almost all the transmission is via the air. I'm less sure that it's aerosol transmission, but I believe that, also. But that does mean that ventilation is quite important. And it's possible that COVID is, essentially, only contagious if you breathe it in. (Do, however, note that "essentially".)

    There's a real problem here, though, because we can't detect where COVID *is* on surfaces, only where it has been, not without a level 3 biology lab, because the only way to tell that it's there is to try to grow it...and that's dangerous. So almost all our data is about where COVID has been, and the RNA can persist on surfaces for a long time.

    OTOH, current measures against COVID should cut the year's flu infections to nearly nothing.

    --
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