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I know there’s no shortage of scary headlines, statistics, and models out there surrounding our current situation, but I have to bring one more to your attention as a public service announcement because it involves something many of us are still doing.
A team of Finnish researchers set out to determine the potential harm of sneezing in a grocery store.
According to HPC Wire, 30 researchers from various institutions used a supercomputer to model a space with aisles between shelves to simulate a typical grocery store. Then, they introduced human figures in two adjacent aisles before making one “cough,” spraying a cloud of aerosol particles smaller than 20 micrometers (.0007874 of an inch) in front of them.
The below model shows how these particles move across the simulated space, and demonstrate how one could be infected several minutes after the cough.
Yikes.
“For a dry cough, which is a typical symptom of the current coronavirus, the particle size is typically less than 15 micrometers,” said Jussi Sane, chief specialist at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare.
“Extremely small particles of this size do not sink on the floor, but instead, move along in the air currents or remain floating in the same place. Studies of influenza A have confirmed that the influenza A virus can be found in the smallest particles, which measure less than 5 micrometers.”
TL:DR…If you’ve got the means, get your groceries delivered.