Research early in the pandemic focused on the role played by large, fast-falling droplets produced by coughing and sneezing. However, documented super-spreader events hinted that airborne transmission of tiny particles from everyday activities may also be a dangerous route of infection. Fifty-three of 61 singers in Washington state, for example, became infected after a 2.5-hour choir rehearsal in March. Of 67 passengers who spent two hours on a bus with a COVID-19-infected individual in Zhejiang Province, China, 24 tested positive afterward.
William Ristenpart, a chemical engineer at the University of California, Davis, found that when people speak or sing loudly, they produce dramatically larger numbers of micron-sized particles compared to when they use a normal voice. The particles produced during yelling, they found, greatly exceed the number produced during coughing. ...snip... “Everyone was very worried about flutes early on, but it turns out that flutes don’t generate that much,” said Hertzberg. On the other hand, instruments like clarinets and oboes, which have wet vibrating surfaces, tend to produce copious aerosols. The good news is they can be controlled. “When you put a surgical mask over the bell of a clarinet or trumpet, it reduces the amount of aerosols back down to levels in a normal tone of voice.” ...snip As Bazant and Bush wrote in a forthcoming paper on the work, staying six feet apart “offers little protection from pathogen-bearing aerosol droplets sufficiently small to be continuously mixed through an indoor space.” A better, flow-dynamics-based understanding of how infected particles move through a room may ultimately yield smarter strategies for reducing transmission.
