New research: The risk of Covid-19 transmission when two people are talking | Explained News,The Indian Express
When the speakers were either of the same height, or of drastically different heights (one tall and another short), the risk of infection was found to be much lower than when the height difference was moderate.
When a person infected with Covid talks to an uninfected person, what is the risk of the first person transmitting the virus to the second? Researchers have examined this question by carrying out computer simulations to analyse the movement of speech aerosols, and published their findings in the journal Flow.
The team included researchers from the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and collaborators from the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in Stockholm, and the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in Bengaluru.
For the simulations, the team visualised scenarios in which two maskless people are standing 2 ft, 4t or 6 ft apart and talking to each other for about a minute, and then estimated the rate and extent of spread of speech aerosols. The simulations showed that the risk of getting infected was higher when one person acted as a passive listener and didn’t engage in a two-way conversation. Factors like the height difference between the two people, and the quantity of aerosols released from their mouths, also appear to play an important role in viral transmission, IISc said in a press release.
For the analysis, the team modified a computer code (called Megha-5) they had originally developed to study the movement and behaviour of cumulus clouds. The analysis incorporated the possibility of viral entry through the eyes and mouth in determining the risk of infection, the release said, noting that most previous studies had only considered the nose as the point of entry.
When the speakers were either of the same height, or of drastically different heights (one tall and another short), the risk of infection was found to be much lower than when the height difference was moderate. Based on the results, the team suggests just turning their heads away by about 9° from each other while still maintaining eye contact can reduce the risk considerably.
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