![]() ![]() But we assumed this because we can't measure for all situations how much breathing air from one mask wearer reaches another person, and because we wanted to calculate the risk as conservatively as possible," Bodenschatz explains. This is because the air that flows out of the mask at the edges is diluted, so you don't get all the unfiltered breathing air. "In daily life, the actual probability of infection is certainly 10 to 100 times smaller," says Eberhard Bodenschatz. The infection probabilities determined by the Max Planck team indicate the upper limit of the risk in each case. Without a mask, the risk of infection is almost 100 percent ![]() ![]() The investigation also confirms the assumption that for effective protection against infection, the infected person in particular should wear a mask that filters as well as possible and tightly fits. If both of them wear well-fitted surgical masks, the virus will be transmitted within 20 minutes with a probability of no more than ten percent. "Then the contagious aerosol particles can no longer get past the mask and glasses no longer fog up." "A mask can be perfectly adapted to the shape of the face if you bend its metal bracket into a rounded W before putting it on," says Eberhard Bodenschatz. If their masks are badly fitted, the likelihood of infection increases to around four percent. If both the infected and the non-infected person wear well-fitting FFP2 masks, the maximum risk of infection after 20 minutes is barely more than one per thousand, even at the shortest possible distance. FFP2 or KN95 masks are particularly effective at filtering infectious particles out of the air we breathe - especially if they are as tightly sealed as possible at the face. In the comprehensive study, by a team from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, it was investigated to what extent masks protect under which wearing conditions. Well-fitting FFP2 masks reduce the risk to at least the per mil range Such encounters are unavoidable in schools, restaurants, clubs or outdoors. "In our study we found that the risk of infection without wearing masks is enormously high after only a few minutes, even at a distance of three meters, if the infected persons have the high viral load of the delta variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus," says Eberhard Bodenschatz. In addition, the particularly large and thus virus-rich particles fall to the ground after only a short distance through the air. At this distance, the breathing air has already spread in a cone shape in the air the infectious particles are correspondingly diluted. "We would not have thought that at a distance of several meters it would take so little time for the infectious dose to be absorbed from the breath of a virus carrier," says Eberhard Bodenschatz, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and Principal Investigator at the DZHK. The Göttingen research team was surprised at how great the risk is of contracting the coronavirus without a mouth and nose protection. ![]()
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