A South Coast researcher says we may be underestimating a key element in the spread of coronavirus.
UC Santa Barbara mathematician Bjorn Birnir says social distancing isn't enough, and that a new study shows that air circulation can play a key role in spreading the virus. Birnir says they are using simulations of some well-known coronavirus outbreaks to study the issue.
The UCSB researcher, who is Director of UC Santa Barbara's Center for Complex and Nonlinear Science, co-authored a just released paper on the findings. He says they based it on a well know outbreak linked to a Chinese restaurant. Birnir says it was the airflow from the air conditioning which caused the problem. Someone with the virus was directly in the path of the airflow, spreading the virus to people sitting at other nearby tables, even though they were much more than six feet away.
The researcher says while it might seem a little unusual for a mathematician to be involved in research of this type, it is based on something they know and use frequently, called fluid dynamics. He describes is as like observing the way water flows in a river.
Birnir says the findings can change the way we look at the spread of coronavirus.
The researcher says they published the initial findings so the medical community could examine them, and they could undergo peer review. He says they are continuing the research, examining two well known outbreaks. One was on a bus in China, and the other was at a South Korean call center.
The UCSB researcher says one of the messages from the preliminary findings is that if you're going to spend time in a place with other people outside of your household, you should also look at the air conditioning. Birnir says that ideally, make sure you’re not "downstream" -- so to speak -- from the airflow passing past the others in the room.
