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Talk dangerous?
Talking and breathing are important factors in coronavirus infection, as they release droplets of secretions from the airways that can spread through the air and potentially infect people nearby.
Contact with these drops has been identified by health professionals as the primary route of transmission for COVID-19. These drops can transmit the virus from one person to another if it falls into the eyes, nose, or mouth. However, they fall fairly quickly on the ground or other surfaces.
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Some researchers say that the coronavirus can also be transmitted through aerosols, extremely small particles that last longer in the air than large droplets. These sprays can be directly inhaled.
This could have happened at a restaurant in Guangzhou, China. Here, an infected person who had not yet developed symptoms transmitted the virus to five other people sitting at adjacent tables. According to one study, ventilation in the room was poor: the fans were off, writes WSJ.
Aerosols with the virus, which the infected person secreted while breathing or talking, could build up in the air over time, and a strong gust of air from the air conditioner in the wall could help recirculate the particles, according to a study not yet confirmed. .
Professor Yuguo Li of the University of Hong Kong said that adequate ventilation in places where people visit and work is very important. Adequate ventilation: When air is pushed to the ceiling and released outside, or when fresh air is let in, it “dilutes” the amount of virus in the room, reducing the risk of infection.
Photo by Saulius Čaplinskas / COVID-19 symptoms
The WSJ writes that another important factor is prolonged contact: 15 minutes or more, without protective measures, at a distance of less than two meters from the infected person.
John Brooks of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the infection can also occur in a shorter period of time, as if the virus carrier faces or has intimate contact by spreading large drops of secretions from the airways.
Superspreaders events
During a choir rehearsal in Washington state on March 10, 87 percent participated. Choir members moved four times in 2.5 hours, were compressed into a small space, most of them larger, said epidemiologist Lea Hamner, WSJ.
According to her, several factors came together. In particular, when singing, people secrete large numbers of particles from larger and smaller airway secretions. Singers also breathe deeply, increasing the chance of inhaling infected particles.
Similar transmission of the virus can occur in other places where people breathe deeply and speak loudly for long periods of time, such as sports clubs, music and theater shows, conferences, weddings, and birthday parties.
An estimated 10 percent. People with COVID-19 are responsible for 80 percent of infections, according to a recent study by Wellcome Open Research.
Some people may have higher levels of the virus or produce more drops by talking or breathing. They can easily infect those around them, even in a small, crowded, poorly ventilated room when they are at the most contagious point of their disease, said WSJ professor Jamie Lloyd-Smith of the University of California.
“But overall, the risk of an infected person passing the virus on to others is low enough,” said Scott Dowell of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in response to COVID-19. “There are a lot of cases where no one gets infected in every super scatter event.”
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How many viruses need to be infected?
According to experts, being outdoors is quite safe. But large and small droplets pose a threat even outdoors when people are close to each other, so they spend a lot of time, said Professor Linsey Marr, WSJ.
No one knows how much virus it takes for a person to become infected, but recent research provides some clues.
A recent study in the journal Nature reported that researchers couldn’t keep the virus alive if a patient’s sample contained less than a million copies of infectious ribonucleic acid from a sore throat or a millimeter of sputum.
“Based on our experiment, it would assume that infectivity would require a greater number (copies of ribonucleic acids) than this,” said one of the researchers, Clemens Wendtner.
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