Study Finds Downward Coughing Reduces Spread of Respiratory Droplets
Researchers from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) have concluded that coughing down reduces the spread of respiratory droplets and, therefore, reduces the possibility of contagion from Covid-19.
Since many people live indoors during the winter months and respiratory droplets are a major contributor to the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the scientific community has renewed its interest in the dynamics underlying its spread.
Thus, these researchers have described the dispersion of the droplets generated by people’s coughs when going up and down the stairs. The investigator Hongping Wang and his team show models that lead to respiratory droplets falling from a mannequin into a water tunnel, which is tilted at different angles to mimic a person walking up and down stairs.
“Two different patterns of droplet dispersion are observed due to different wake flows,” said Wang. “These results suggest that we must cough with the head towards the ground to guarantee that the majority of the drops enter the region of the wake that is left when coughing“, Add.
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