Free interactive tool reveals risk of catching coronavirus indoors

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A website built by the University of Cambridge has been set up to reveal the risk of coronavirus infection in indoor spaces.

The app has various customizable settings, including ventilation level, number of occupants and activity level and mask wearing.

Anyone can use it to find out how much risk they are taking in a room of virtually any size or type.

For each set of parameters, the site produces a graph showing the risk of infection over a period of time, the default being 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The site is called Airborne.cam and can be accessed here.

A website built by the University of Cambridge has been programmed to reveal the risk of coronavirus infection in indoor spaces, and is used by the university to monitor locations and make them secure by Covid (stock)

The online tool shows that in a 30-person, 100-square-meter office with three-meter-high ceilings, the risk of a person catching the virus from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. if one person is infected and no one is mask wear is 6.06% (photo)

The graph it creates showing an individual’s risk of infection is calculated by a series of scientific equations outlined in a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

Users can determine room occupancy, mask type and activity level. Mask settings do not include any masks, surgical masks, N95 masks or fabric coverings.

The activity level can also be changed, from sitting / breathing to strenuous exercise.

Ventilation can also be changed, with six options ranging from poorly ventilated ventilation to industrial hospital ventilation.

The academics also incorporated the dimensions of the room and a period of time that is factored into the equation.

In their research, the scientists found that two people chatting freely in a poorly ventilated space without wearing a mask are at greater risk of infection than if one of them coughed.

In the same office and with consistent settings, if everyone wears a surgical mask all day and takes an hour of lunch break outside, that drops to just 2.13% (pictured)

Pictured are the various parameters that can be changed by users to calculate a specific level of individual risk for a space via the Airborne.cam website

Wearing face masks stops the spread of Covid-19

Wearing face masks is an effective way to stop the spread of the coronavirus, a landmark study has found.

US researchers have found that a 10% increase in self-reported mask wear is associated with a three-fold increase in the chances of keeping the R-number below 1.

R is the number of people to whom an infected person will transmit the virus, on average. When the R-value is less than 1, it means that the epidemic is decreasing.

However, scientists warn that while face masks can help control the transmission of Covid-19 in the community, they should not replace other coronavirus measures such as social distancing.

Experts based in the United States said their findings, published in the journal Lancet Digital Health, suggest that communities where mask wear and physical distancing are most likely to control transmission.

Scientists have found that the chances of this happening increase 3.53 times if there is a 10% increase in the wearing of masks in the population, regardless of baseline.

This, they say, is because speaking leads to the exhalation of small droplets called aerosols that float around a confined space.

Without proper ventilation, they can linger in the air, increasing the risk that a person inhales them and subsequently becomes infected.

However, a cough produces large droplets that are much heavier and likely to fall to the nearest surface and not stay suspended in the air.

“Our knowledge of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has evolved at an incredible rate, considering that it has only been a year since the virus was first identified,” said Dr Pedro de Oliveira, Senior author of the article.

“There are different ways of approaching this problem. In our work, we consider the wide range of respiratory droplets that humans exhale to demonstrate different scenarios of airborne viral transmission – the first being the rapid spread of small infectious droplets over several meters in seconds, which can occur at a time. inside and inside. outside.

“Next, we show how these tiny droplets can build up in indoor spaces over the long term, and how this can be mitigated with proper ventilation.

The free online tool shows that in a 30-person, 100-square-meter (1,076-square-foot) office with ceilings that are three meters (9.8 feet) high, the risk of one person catching the 9 a.m. virus at 5 p.m. if a person is infected and no one is wearing a mask is 6.06%.

If everyone in the office wears a surgical mask all day and takes an hour’s lunch break outside, that drops to just 2.13%.

But if three people work in an average-sized (18 square meters / 193 square feet) dining room with poor ventilation and one person is infected, the risk of catching the virus in eight hours is 48.73%.

The calculations are based on the assumption that ‘hands are washed and individuals are far apart – that is, there is no risk of short-range droplet / aerosol transmission “.

The tool is now actively used by the University of Cambridge, making it a prerequisite for high-risk spaces at the institution, which will allow staff to put mitigating factors in place, such as a reduced capacity or increased ventilation.

“ The tool can help people use fluid mechanics to make better choices and adapt their daily activities and environment to remove risks, both to themselves and to others, ” said co-author Savvas Gkantonas, who led the development. of the application with Dr de Oliveira.

A similar tool was previously created by researchers across the Atlantic Ocean at MIT.

The tool reveals that it doesn’t matter what size or type of room, but the types of masks that people who occupy it wear and the ventilation system it is equipped with can significantly increase or decrease the risks.

In a standard room with 8 foot high ceilings and each wall approximately 15 feet long, 10 fit young people, all diligently wearing surgical masks, could sit safely and speak normally for two hours if the windows were closed due to the cold outside.

But, for a family of ten, some of whom are elderly, in a standard dining room for dinner where no one wears a mask because they’re eating and the windows are closed because it’s cold outside – and there’s has some heated discussions with voice – the tool reveals that the safe limit is reduced to just three minutes.

Its developers say the online site allows people to calculate risk with more nuance than just advice, often vague, to form “bubbles” or social distancing.

The calculations that inform the site were published by the authors John Bush and Martin Bazant on the pe-print server medRxiv.

The MIT tool’s settings for homes, schools, and restaurants suggest that a few people in any location are likely safe for days in a home with more space, or hours in a restaurant – but once rooms are more densely occupied, the risk increases.

The risk of catching coronavirus from a family member you live with is only 17% and only one in three people pass it on to their spouse

A family member’s risk of catching the novel coronavirus is less than one in five, a new study suggests.

In a meta-analysis, researchers found that only 16.6% of all people with COVID-19 passed it on to family members.

More than one in three people pass the virus on to their spouse.

In addition, when the infected person did not have symptoms such as cough, fever or shortness of breath, the transmission rate was only 0.7%.

The tam, from the University of Florida, says the results show that, since people with suspected or confirmed cases must self-isolate at home, people should consider wearing a mask around family members. likely to be carriers of the virus.

For the analysis, published in JAMA Network Open, the team reviewed 54 relevant studies with more than 77,000 participants reporting secondary transmission within households.

The researchers looked at several factors, including contact with an adult or a child, the number of contacts, and whether the sick person was symptomatic or not.

The results showed that 16.6% of coronavirus patients transmitted the disease to members of their household.

The rate was higher if the person had traditional symptoms such as cough, fever and shortness of breath, with 18% spreading to household members.

However, if the infected individual was asymptomatic, he only transmitted it to 0.7% of household contacts.

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