Social-distancing guidelines to stay 6 feet from others might be woefully insufficient, one researcher alerts– stating the coronavirus can travel 27 feet and also hang around for hours.
MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba, who has actually investigated the physics of coughing and sneezes for several years, advises in a freshly released research paper that the current standards are based upon outdated models from the 1930s.
Instead of the presumed safety and security of 6 feet, Bourouiba alerts that “pathogen-bearing beads of all sizes can take a trip 23 to 27 feet.”
Her research, released in the Journal of the American Medical Association, additionally warns that “droplets that settle along the trajectory can contaminate surfaces”– and also “residues or droplet nuclei” may “stay suspended in the air for hours.”
As proof she cites a 2020 record from China that showed “virus bits could be found in the air flow systems in hospital rooms of patients with COVID-19.”
Bourouiba is afraid that the existing standards are “overly simplified” and even “may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions” against the lethal pandemic.
In her report, she claims it is especially important for healthcare employees who deal with an “underappreciated potential exposure range” while dealing with the ill and dying. That means that many doctors and nurses may be at risk when they think that they are safe.
“There’s an urgency in revising the guidelines currently being given by the [World Health Organization] and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] on the needs for protective equipment, particularly for the frontline health care workers,” Bourouiba informed USA Today.
The World Health Organization– which advises 3 feet is enough to continue being safe– informed USA Today it “welcomed” research studies.
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