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Predominance of inhalation route in short-range transmission of respiratory viruses: Investigation based on computational fluid dynamics.

ABSTRACT: During the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, short-range virus transmission has been observed to have a higher risk of causing infection than long-range virus transmission. However, the roles played by the inhalation and large droplet routes cannot be distinguished in practice. A recent analytical study revealed the predominance of short-range inhalation over the large droplet spray route as causes of respiratory infections. In the current study, short-range exposure was analyzed via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations using a discrete phase model. Detailed facial membranes, including eyes, nostrils, and a mouth, were considered. In CFD simulations, there is no need for a spherical approximation of the human head for estimating deposition nor the "anisokinetic aerosol sampling" approximation for estimating inhalation in the analytical model. We considered two scenarios (with two spheres [Scenario 1] and two human manikins [Scenario 2]), source-target distances of 0.2 to 2 m, and droplet diameters of 3 to 1,500 µm. The overall CFD exposure results agree well with data previously obtained from a simple analytical model. The CFD results confirm the predominance of the short-range inhalation route beyond 0.2 m for expiratory droplets smaller than 50 µm during talking and coughing. A critical droplet size of 87.5 µm was found to differentiate droplet behaviors. The number of droplets deposited on the target head exceeded those exposed to facial membranes, which implies a risk of exposure through the immediate surface route over a short range.

Electronic supplementary material esm

the Supplementary Materials are available in the online version of this article at 10.1007/s12273-022-0968-y.

SUBMITTER: Chen W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9782262 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Predominance of inhalation route in short-range transmission of respiratory viruses: Investigation based on computational fluid dynamics.

Chen Wenzhao W Liu Li L Hang Jian J Li Yuguo Y

Building simulation 20221223 5

During the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, short-range virus transmission has been observed to have a higher risk of causing infection than long-range virus transmission. However, the roles played by the inhalation and large droplet routes cannot be distinguished in practice. A recent analytical study revealed the predominance of short-range inhalation over the large droplet spray route as causes of respiratory infections. In the current study, short-range exposure was analyzed via computatio ...[more]

PMID: 36575690

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Project description:Debate and scientific inquiries regarding airborne transmission of respiratory infections such as COVID-19 and influenza continue. Health authorities including the WHO and the US CDC have recognized the airborne transmission of COVID-19 in specific settings, although the ventilation requirements remain to be determined. In this work we consider the long-range airborne transmission as an extended short-range airborne route, which reconciles the link between short- and long-range airborne routes. The effective short-range distance is defined as the distance in short range at which long-range route has the same volumetric exposure value as that due to short-range route. Our data show that a decrease in ventilation rate or room volume per person, or an increase in the ratio of the number of infected to susceptible people reduces the effective short-range distance. In a normal breathing scenario with one out of five people infected and a room volume of 12 m3 per person to ensure an effective short-range distance of 1.5 m, a ventilation rate of 10 L/s per person is needed for a duration of 2 h. Our results suggest that effective environmental prevention strategies for respiratory infections require appropriate increases in the ventilation rate while maintaining a sufficiently low occupancy. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Demonstration of the long-range airborne route as an extended short-range airborne route suggests the significant role played by building ventilation in respiratory infection exposure. The reconciliation of short- and long-range airborne transmission suggests that the commonly observed dominance of close-contact transmission is a probable evidence of short-range airborne transmission, following a separate earlier study that revealed the relative insignificance of large droplet transmission in comparison with the short-range airborne-route. Existing ventilation standards do not account for respiratory infection control, and this study presents a possible approach to account for infection under new ventilation standards.

Dataset Information

Predominance of inhalation route in short-range transmission of respiratory viruses: Investigation based on computational fluid dynamics.

Electronic supplementary material esm

Publications

Predominance of inhalation route in short-range transmission of respiratory viruses: Investigation based on computational fluid dynamics.

Similar Datasets

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