How distant? An experimental analysis of students’ COVID-19 exposure and physical distancing in university buildings

Abstract

Closed university buildings proved to be one of the main hot spots for virus transmission during pandemics. As shown during the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing is one of the most effective measures to limit such transmission. As universities prepare to manage in-class activities, students’ adherence to physical distancing requirements is a priority topic. Unfortunately, while physical distancing in classrooms can be easily managed, the movement of students inside common spaces can pose high risk of close proximity. This paper provides an experimental analysis of unidirectional student movement inside a case-study university building to investigate how physical distancing requirements impact student movement and grouping behaviour. Results show general adherence with the minimum required physical distancing guidance, but spaces such as corridors pose higher risk of exposure than doorways. Doorway width, in combination with group behaviour, affect the students' capacity to keep the recommended physical distance. Furthermore, questionnaire results show that students report higher perceived vulnerability while moving along corridors. Evidence-based results can support decision-makers in understanding individuals’ exposure to COVID-19 in universities and researchers in developing behavioural models in preparation of future outbreaks and pandemics.

COVID-19 safe campus evaluation for universities by a hybrid interval type-2 fuzzy decision-making model

“…Sousan et al ( 2021 ), Dhama et al ( 2021 ) Reducing touch It means limiting the use of common materials, preventing contact as much as possible to reduce the virus’s spread, and ensuring the disinfection of common materials at frequent intervals. It also includes measures to reduce the number of people in the environment and to use personal protective equipment McGee et al ( 2021 ), Esmaeilzadeh ( 2022 ), World Health Organization ( 2020a ) Social distance In order to prevent the spread of the disease, it means taking measures such as keeping the number of patients at a level that will not force the health system, making capacity plans, restricting mobility, providing different entrance and exit doors, and not speaking loudly in the environment Poole et al ( 2021 ), D’Orazio et al ( 2021 ), Kobayashi et al ( 2020 ), Shen et al ( 2021 ), Byrne et al ( 2020 ), McGee et al ( 2021 ), Wilson et al ( 2020 ), Mossa-Basha et al ( 2020 ), Greenhalgh et al ( 2021 ), Fischetti et al ( 2021 ), Bartolucci et al ( 2022 ), Ugail et al ( 2021 ) Planning Training plans It covers the education plans for the personnel of higher education institutions, students, and visitors Lordan et al ( 2021 ), Wilson et al ( 2020 ), Chisita et al ( 2022 ) Emergency action plan It covers the plans made to be able to organize immediately, intervene regularly, ensure that the institution remains operational, and minimize the damages that may arise in case of a diagnosis and/or suspicion of contagious disease among staff and students Izumi et al ( 2020 ) Infection and control plans It covers the necessary arrangements and plans to minimize the risk of people encountering the virus Poole et al ( 2021 ), Shen et al ( 2021 ), Wilson et al ( 2020 ), Esmaeilzadeh ( 2022 ), Cohen et al ( 2021 ) Cleaning plans …”

Crowd dynamics research in the era of Covid-19 pandemic: Challenges and opportunities

“…In that sense, the experimental front in crowd dynamics research has not adopted much to the notion of the pandemic other than being largely abandoned. Continuation of this line of work, that has in fact been the most dynamic stream of research in this field since 2015 ( Haghani, 2021 ), may require innovations and logistical compromises such as experimenting in outdoor venues ( Lu et al, 2021 ) and/or experimenting under sparse crowd conditions ( Bartolucci et al, 2022 ).…”

“…For example, in the previous section and when discussing the new requirements for inputs of pedestrian models, the notion of enforcing physical distancing was raised. It is understandable that there is always going to be a difference between the distance dictated as a policy and the distance that people can actually maintain from one another under different movement conditions (e.g., corridors, exits etc) ( Bartolucci et al, 2022 ). This discrepancy is a valuable piece of information that can be obtained from experimentation (e.g., to determine high-risk locations).…”

Community- and Data-Driven Services for Multi-Policy Pedestrian Routing

“…A set of studies have been conducted to see how the transmission is carried out and to determine the right measures for prevention and distancing. They regard the dependency between pedestrian dynamics and epidemiology [33], the aerosol transmission [34], the mathematical modeling of disease spreading [35], and the risks of students' exposure to COVID-19 in a university building [36] or in other urban settlements [37].…”