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The coughs have been filmed with extremely high time resolution and high sensitivity using lasers. This has made it possible to count the number of drops and measure their speed with great precision.
– An interesting discovery was that the number of drops generated varied significantly between different people. This provides a possible explanation for why some infected people are “super-spreaders” and others are not, says Edouard Berrocal, senior lecturer in the Department of Combustion Physics at Lund University.
Unpublished results
The results, which have not yet been published, show that 15 percent of the cough drops passed a simpler model of oral protection. These droplets are usually so small that they can be seen as aerosols, that is, very small particles.
– Other studies have shown that mouthwash blocks 90-95% of drops in cough, but we think our result may differ slightly because our measurement sensitivity was higher. Measuring the number of drops is also different from measuring the total amount of liquid, says Adrian Roth, a doctoral student who developed the image analysis algorithm for counting drops.
One factor not considered in the study is that the effectiveness of a disposable mask can vary from one type to another and is assumed to decrease after a period of use, as it becomes wet.
It is not clear which drops spread the infection.
Currently, researchers disagree on how much smaller droplets or sprays are responsible for the spread of corona infection.
– Much remains to be understood about how this virus spreads, says Edouard Berrocal.
