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Article
Modelling the viral load dependence of residence times of virus laden droplets from COVID-19 infected subjects in indoor environments
Srinivasan Anand
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
Corresponding Author
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This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation, exposure assessment and control strategies for aerosol transmission path are feebly understood. A recent study pointed out that Poissonian fluctuations in viral loading of airborne droplets significantly modifies the size spectrum of the virus laden droplets (termed as “virusol”). Herein we develop theory of residence time of the virusols, as contrasted with clean droplets in indoor air using a comprehensive “Falling-to-Mixing-plateout” model that considers all the important processes. This model fills the existing gap between Wells falling drop model and the stirred chamber models. The effect of various parameters on mean residence time are examined in detail. Significantly, the mean residence time of virusols is found to increase nonlinearly with the viral load in the ejecta, ranging from ~125 s at low viral loads (<104/mL) to about 1150 s at high viral loads (>1011/mL). The implications are further discussed.
Keywords
COVID-19, aerosol, residence time, evaporation, indoor transport
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- SupplementaryInformation.docx
Supplementary Information (SI): 1. Derivation of analytical solution for the 1-D and 3-D theoretical models, and comparison of their results. 2. Table S2: Input Parameters & constants
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This is a preprint. It has not completed peer review.
Article
Modelling the viral load dependence of residence times of virus laden droplets from COVID-19 infected subjects in indoor environments
Srinivasan Anand
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
Corresponding Author
Badges
Prescreen
This manuscript passed our Prescreen assessment
Complete author information
Appropriate declaration statements
Potential risks to human health
Prescreen
History
CURRENT STATUS: Posted
Version 1
Posted 11 Jan, 2021
No community comments so far
Metrics
Comments: 0
PDF Downloads: ...
HTML Views: ...
License:
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation, exposure assessment and control strategies for aerosol transmission path are feebly understood. A recent study pointed out that Poissonian fluctuations in viral loading of airborne droplets significantly modifies the size spectrum of the virus laden droplets (termed as “virusol”). Herein we develop theory of residence time of the virusols, as contrasted with clean droplets in indoor air using a comprehensive “Falling-to-Mixing-plateout” model that considers all the important processes. This model fills the existing gap between Wells falling drop model and the stirred chamber models. The effect of various parameters on mean residence time are examined in detail. Significantly, the mean residence time of virusols is found to increase nonlinearly with the viral load in the ejecta, ranging from ~125 s at low viral loads (<104/mL) to about 1150 s at high viral loads (>1011/mL). The implications are further discussed.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Due to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. However, the manuscript can be downloaded and accessed as a PDF.