A new study on the COVID-19 virus has once again brought to light how easily the infection can be transmitted among people and why it is so necessary to strictly abide by the COVID-19 protocols. The study by a team of engineers from the University of Cambridge shows that airborne transmission of COVID-19 is highly random.
The research also suggests that the two-meter social distancing rule was chosen from a risk ‘continuum’, rather than any concrete measurement of safety. The team of researchers used computer modelling to quantify how droplets spread when people cough.Â
Infected people can spread the virus through coughing, speaking or even breathing, when they expel larger droplets that eventually settle or smaller aerosols that may float in the air.
The researchers found that a person with COVID-19 can infect another person without a mask at a two-metre distance which was used as a standard measurement of safety. This reiterates the importance of vaccination and face masks and also maintaining a social distance of much more than two metres.
The study goes on to say that individual coughs vary widely and so the so-called ‘safe’ distance should be three or more metres. “One part of the way that this disease spreads is virology: how much virus you have in your body, how many viral particles you expel when you speak or cough,” said Dr Shrey Trivedi.
Shrey Trivedi is the Indian-origin first author of the study published in the journal ‘Physics of Fluids’ this week. The results of the study suggest that social distancing is not an effective measure in itself but it is necessary along with vaccination, ventilation and masks.
The research was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
