If we are really a scientific community, we should not blindly accept anything that popular media propagate as propaganda.
In case of Viral infections, not limited to COVID 19, role of droplets emitted by infectious humans is significant. Local conditions play vital role in survival of this virus spreading medium.
The droplet evaporation/desiccation time is, indeed, dependent on ambient temperature and is also a strong function of relative humidity.
Respiratory droplets from a cough or sneeze travel farther and last longer in humid, cold climates than in hot, dry ones, according to a study on droplet physics by an international team of engineers.
“The basic fundamental form of a chemical reaction is two molecules are colliding. How frequently they’re colliding will give you how fast the reaction progresses,” said Abhishek Saha, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California San Diego, and one of the authors of the paper. “It’s exactly the same here; how frequently healthy people are coming in contact with an infected droplet cloud can be a measure of how fast the disease can spread.”
“Droplet physics are significantly dependent on weather,” said Saha. “If you’re in a colder, humid climate, droplets from a sneeze or cough are going to last longer and spread farther than if you’re in a hot dry climate, where they’ll get evaporated faster. We incorporated these parameters into our model of infection spread; they aren’t included in existing models as far as we can tell.”
Food for thought from this research?
Keeping aside individual person’s immunity state, Health can be maintained by
- Avoiding crowded places, closed premised where Sun or Air can’t pass through and remaining with known or friendly microbial load (of like minded people, who are not on Stress hormone High due to pandemic anxiety and fear)
- Staying close to nature helps best. Sunlight, Air flow. No crowd.
- During monsoon, keeping indoor environment Dry and Hot by Agnihotra\Dhoop can help
It also raises the question: Does hot and humid environment behind the mask, increase the viral load?
Reference: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0015984
