Corona study: Covid-19 less contagious after a few minutes in the air

Created: 01/13/2022, 02:26 PM

From: Yannick Hanke

A study from Bristol, England, has shown that the coronavirus can spread much more slowly in the fresh air than in closed rooms.

(Symbol picture) © Oliver Berg / dpa

Finally good news about Covid-19.

A corona study from England has shown that the coronavirus is less contagious in the fresh air.

Berlin / Bristol - The coronavirus is being dealt with on a wide variety of levels and in a wide variety of institutions.

Politicians must decide on pandemic measures, medicine and research must develop vaccines against Covid-19 *.

And science is carrying out corona studies that are supposed to provide new knowledge about the invisible virus.

This is what happened at the Aerosol Research Center at the University of Bristol in the UK.

Corona study: Covid-19 less contagious in air: British study provides new findings on transmission

A current study by this scientific institution would have shown that the coronavirus is apparently much less contagious in the air within a few minutes.

The British daily newspaper "The Guardian" reports on it.

According to this, a large part of the risk of infection would decrease after just five minutes in the air.

After 20 minutes in the air, the risk of infection is even reduced by 90 percent.

The study by the Aerosol Research Center thus confirms once again that the risk of corona infection exists above all in a particularly confined space.

The results of the British researchers would have applied to all three coronavirus variants examined so far - alpha, beta and delta *.

Omicron transmission in the fresh air has yet to be investigated - which corona rules must still be observed

The Omikron variant * should also be subjected to the researchers' "infection test" in the near future.

However, the question arises as to what the scientific findings mean for “practice”.

First of all, the results underline how important it is to wear a face mask and to keep the minimum distances in the context of the containment of the infection process.

Indoor ventilation systems would play a rather minor role here.

However, they should continue to be used.

The following rule of thumb is also important: the closer you are to another person, the higher the risk of corona infection.

Decreasing risk of corona infection in the air: Aerosols dry out more and are less likely to be transmitted to other people

“That means if you meet your friends for lunch in a restaurant today, the more likely that I will infect them or they will infect me - more likely than that I will be infected by someone across the room ", Study director Jonathan Reid is quoted in this context by the" Guardian ".

But how is the falling risk of infection to be justified?

The authors of the study refer to the aerosols that would still have a high proportion of moisture and carbon dioxide in the lungs.

They lose this when they get into the air.

And with every minute outside the body, they dry out more and more - which makes it harder for them to pass on to other people.

Corona study from Great Britain: Covid-19 after 20 minutes in the air 90 percent less contagious

How quickly these particles dry out depends on the respective humidity.

If this is 50 percent, as is often the case in dry interiors, the studies show that the particles would have lost half of their own moisture after just five seconds.

On the other hand, if the humidity is 90 percent, the aerosols have dried out more slowly.

But the researchers came to the same result in both scenarios: after just 20 minutes in the air, the coronavirus was 90 percent less contagious.

A vulnerability from the coronavirus was discovered again.

English researchers develop special device to simulate aerosol development during corona transmission

The study presented by the University of Bristol is the first of its kind in the world to use realistic simulations to examine the survival time of the coronavirus in exhaled air in various scenarios.

So far, comparable studies have always been based on the investigation of aerosols that have been sprayed into a special device.

The device rotated to keep the particles in the air.

For this purpose, the researchers from Bristol had developed a new device that can first of all realistically imitate what exactly happens with aerosols that are not sprayed, but coughed out or exhaled.

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