Here’s how long it takes to catch COVID if you’re in a room with someone who has it – BGR

• MIT researchers have created a website that reveals how long it takes to catch the coronavirus in a room with someone who has it.
• The risk of transmission depends on a few variables (room size, mask wear) that website users can change depending on their environment.
• Indoor gatherings are disproportionately responsible for coronavirus transmissions.
• If you find yourself at an indoor gathering, it is imperative that you wear a mask and obey social distancing rules.

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While the coronavirus can be spread more easily than the flu, the reality is that just being in the same room with someone who has the virus doesn’t automatically mean that you are going to contract it yourself. Even indoors – where the coronavirus is most likely to spread – the ability of the virus to spread from person to person depends on various factors such as air circulation, whether or not masks are worn, social distance, viral load of the infected person, size of indoor space, etc.

In light of the above, two researchers at MIT recently used mathematical models to anticipate the likelihood of someone contracting COVID-19 while in the same room as someone who already had it. . More usefully, the researchers used all of their findings to create a website where users can specifically enter several variables to help them determine the risk associated with an indoor gathering.

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The website can be accessed here and is, without exaggeration, fascinating to play. In addition to choosing from a list of indoor environments like a restaurant, church, or suburban home, users can also specify the square footage of a given room, ceiling height, ventilation system, and floor space. ‘humidity. Regarding human behavior, users can specify whether people speak soft or loud, what percentage of people in the room wear masks, what type of masks people wear, and even the risk tolerance of those in the room. .

As an illustrative example, here is a scenario that I plugged into the site: The environment I chose was a 500 square foot room with 10 foot high ceilings. Regarding human behavior, I indicated that people would be standing, speaking at a normal volume, and that 50% of people in the room would wear masks. Based on the above, the site relayed that 2 people could be in the room for 2 hours without significant risk of catching the coronavirus. When I changed the setting so that no one in the room wears a mask, the website indicated that someone would likely contract the coronavirus after 45 minutes.

Obviously, no one at this point should be planning or attending any type of indoor gathering given how quickly the coronavirus is spreading. Still, if you’re planning on heading home for the Christmas holidays, it’s probably a good idea to check out the website, plug in the required variables, and get a measure of how safe things are.

In an effort to get closer to a typical vacation gathering, I decided to examine the risk of transmission in a 2,000 square foot home with standard AC and closed windows. Assuming a gathering of 5 people and assuming no one is wearing a mask inside, the website reports that it would only take someone 3 hours to contract the coronavirus. A gathering of 10 people changes the time to two hours.

Looking ahead, we can only hope that the promising vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna can help us weather the coronavirus pandemic in the coming months. By the way, Moderna said today that its coronavirus vaccine is 100% effective when it comes to preventing severe symptoms of the coronavirus. In the best-case scenario, Dr Fauci said life could return to normal by next summer.