Abstract
With the outbreak of COVID-19 in many countries, public awareness related to the droplet mode of virus transmission is well documented and communicated. With a large spike in COVID-19 positive cases and the mortality rate, most of the general public are following preventive measures such as wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and frequent hand washing. However, recently, it has been reported that the virus may also transmit through aerosolized particles of diameter <10 µm. The majority of the past research focuses on understanding droplet generation and transport through the most violent spasmodic expiration: coughing and sneezing. However, “breathing,” the most common phenomenon, is scarcely studied as a virus transmission source. In the present study, we report an experimental visualization of the droplet’s transport through breathing to quantify the reach of a typical breath for various exhale to inhale ratios. The efficacy of various standard (surgical, five-layered, and N95) and non-standard (homemade) protective measures such as face masks and face shields is also evaluated. An exhaled breath at E:I = 1:1 can travel up to 4 ft in 5 s; however, this reach reduces to 3 ft for E:I = 1:2. Two-layer homemade and commercial cotton masks are unable to completely impede the leakage of the droplet in the forward direction. A combination of a two-layer mask and face shield is also not effective in preventing the leakage and diffusion of the droplets. The surgical mask alone is not recommended during normal conversations as the leakage of the droplets is noticeable. A commercial N95 mask completely impedes the leakage of the droplets in the forward direction. However, the leakage of the droplets from the gaps between the mask and the nose is observed to be significant. A commercial five-layered mask is observed to be the most effective preservative measure with minimum leakage of the droplets.
Highlights
The COVID-19 outbreak is spread all over the world
Breathing as a potential source of virus transmission is seldom studied in the literature
Two-layer homemade and commercial cotton masks are unable to impede the leakage of the droplet in the forward direction
Summary
The COVID-19 outbreak is spread all over the world This global pandemic has influenced economics significantly, and many countries are still finding ways to bring the economy to normal. This global pandemic has motivated many to report studies related to possible sources and modes of COVID-19 transmission (Dbouk and Drikakis, 2020a; 2020b), transmission risk (Agrawal and Bhardwaj, 2020; Li et al, 2020a; Wang et al, 2020; Mittal et al, 2020; Pendara and Páscoab, 2020; Das et al, 2020; and Fontes et al, 2020), and innovative preventive measures (Bhardwaj and Agrawal, 2020a; 2020b, Chen et al, 2020; Akagi et al, 2020; Akhtar et al, 2020; and Li et al, 2020b). The basis for formulating such guidelines is the assumable mode of COVID-19 virus transmission, the “droplet mode.” recently, it has been reported that the airborne mode of virus transmission may play a scitation.org/journal/adv dominant role under certain circumstances (Eissenberg et al, 2020; Domingo et al, 2020; Morawska and Cao, 2020; Morawska and Milton, 2020; Lewis, 2020; and Ishii et al, 2021)
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