New!Stay informed with our freeemail newsletter.
advertisement
Science News
from research organizations

Evaporation critical to coronavirus transmission as weather changes

Impact of evaporation on virus survival, concentration, transmission

Date:
September 22, 2020
Source:
American Institute of Physics
Summary:
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, it is increasingly urgent to understand how climate impacts the spread of the coronavirus, particularly as winter virus infections are more common and the northern hemisphere will soon see cooler temperatures. Researchers studied the effects of relative humidity, environmental temperature, and wind speed on the respiratory cloud and virus viability. They found a critical factor for the transmission of the infectious particles is evaporation.
Share:
advertisement

FULL STORY

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise worldwide, it is increasingly urgent to understand how climate impacts the continued spread of the coronavirus, particularly as winter virus infections are more common and countries in the northern hemisphere will soon see cooler temperatures.

In a paper inPhysics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers studied the effects of relative humidity, environmental temperature, and wind speed on the respiratory cloud and virus viability. They found that a critical factor for the transmission of the infectious particles, which are immersed in respiratory clouds of saliva droplets, is evaporation.

"Suppose we have a better understanding of the evaporation and its relation to climate effects. In that case, we can more accurately predict the virus concentration and better determine its viability or the potential for virus survival," said Dimitris Drikakis, one of the authors.

Despite the importance of airborne droplet transmission, research regarding heat and mass transfer around and within respiratory droplets containing the virus has been scarce.

To address the challenge, the researchers developed theoretical correlations for the unsteady evaporation of coronavirus-contaminated saliva droplets. They implemented the theory in an advanced computational fluid dynamics platform and studied the effects of weather conditions on airborne virus transmission.

"We found high temperature and low relative humidity lead to high evaporation rates of saliva-contaminated droplets, thus significantly reducing the virus viability," said co-author Talib Dbouk.

Additionally, the researchers observed the travel distance and concentration of the droplet cloud continued to be significant, even at high temperatures if the relative humidity is high. The wind speed is another crucial factor that might alter all the rules for the social distancing guidelines.

These findings help explain why the pandemic increased during July in different crowded cities around the world, such as Delhi, which experienced both high temperatures and high relative humidity. It also provides a crucial alert for the possibility of a second wave of the pandemic in the coming autumn and winter seasons, where low temperatures and high wind speeds will increase airborne virus survival and transmission.

这项研究增加了越来越多的研究that reinforces the importance of social distancing and the use of face masks to prevent full virus spread. The results reveal the importance of weather conditions in the virus's viability, which can help guide the design of measures in both indoor and outdoor environments, to reduce airborne virus transmission in private and public spaces.

advertisement


Story Source:

Materialsprovided byAmerican Institute of Physics.注意:内容可能被编辑风格d length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Talib Dbouk, Dimitris Drikakis.Weather impact on airborne coronavirus survival.Physics of Fluids, 2020; 32 (9): 093312 DOI:10.1063/5.0024272

Cite This Page:

American Institute of Physics. "Evaporation critical to coronavirus transmission as weather changes." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 September 2020. /releases/2020/09/200922112304.htm>.
American Institute of Physics. (2020, September 22). Evaporation critical to coronavirus transmission as weather changes.ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 2, 2023 from www.koonmotors.com/releases/2020/09/200922112304.htm
American Institute of Physics. "Evaporation critical to coronavirus transmission as weather changes." ScienceDaily. www.koonmotors.com/releases/2020/09/200922112304.htm (accessed November 2, 2023).

Explore More
from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES