The airborne lifetime of small speech droplets and their potential importance in SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Stadnytskyi V
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7275719 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
The airborne lifetime of small speech droplets and their potential importance in SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
Stadnytskyi Valentyn V Bax Christina E CE Bax Adriaan A Anfinrud Philip P
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200513 22
Speech droplets generated by asymptomatic carriers of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are increasingly considered to be a likely mode of disease transmission. Highly sensitive laser light scattering observations have revealed that loud speech can emit thousands of oral fluid droplets per second. In a closed, stagnant air environment, they disappear from the window of view with time constants in the range of 8 to 14 min, which corresponds to droplet nuclei of <i>ca.</ ...[more]
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