A short distance between infected persons and exposed persons can probably result in a high risk of respiratory infection. This work experimentally investigated the short-range bioaerosol deposition and inhalation by a healthy person (HP) and the effect of a personalized ventilation (PV) on the HP, who was exposed to cough droplets from an infected person (IP) over a short distance between 0.5 m and 1.2 m. Benign E. coli was employed to represent the pathogen from the respiratory droplets. The microorganism deposition on different locations of the HP's body (shoulder, chest and body back) and face (forehead, cheek, and chin) as well as inhalation were characterized by a cultivation method. It was found that the inhalation and deposition of vital pathogens on the face and body surface of the HP increased as the distance between the HP and the IP decreased. PV has been showed to reduce exposure by inhalation, while this is the first time to demonstrate that PV can also significantly reduce the number deposition. By optimizing the velocity of PV flow with respect to the distance, the bioaerosol deposited on the face and body and inhaled could be reduced by a maximum of 98%, 85% and 100%, respectively. For short-range disease transmission, physical barriers, e.g., mask and partition, are the conventional and believed to be the only intervention measures. The current results indicate that PV can be a potential method for infection control in the area of disease transmission in close contact situations.
Respiratory bioaerosol deposition in public transport cabins is critical for risk analysis and control of contact transmission. In this work, we built a two‐row four‐seat setup and an air duct system to simulate a cabin environment. A thermal manikin on the rear left‐hand seat was taken as the infected passenger (IP) and “coughed” three times through a cough generator. The deposited viruses and droplets on nearby seats were measured by a cultivation method and microscope, respectively. The effects of seat backrest and overhead gasper jet were studied. Results showed that the number of deposited virus on the front seat was one order of magnitude higher than that on other seats which only contained droplets smaller than 10 µm in diameter. When the backrest was 15 cm higher than the cough, the deposited number of viruses was reduced to 5% of that with the backrest at the same height with the cough. The gasper jet above the IP with a velocity of 1.5 m/s can reduce the deposited viruses to 4% of that with gasper off. It indicates that both the gasper jet and backrest can work as mitigation measures to block the cough jet and protect the nearby passengers.
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