Further evidence that face coverings were largely pointless in shops..
New study finds choral society outbreak that sparked panic was misunderstood, with most choristers having been infected outside of rehearsal
www.telegraph.co.uk
“This was a building designed for 120, with quite a high ceiling and doors opening and constant air movement, it doesn’t make sense to imagine that there are these clouds of aerosols drifting around and being inhaled.
“It is plausible there are risks in packed indoor spaces, but the risks of ordinary supermarkets, shops or church gatherings have probably been exaggerated.”
The team said it was not criticising the original investigation, but said the incident had continued to be used as a reason for indoor restrictions, even when new evidence emerged questioning airborne spread in well-ventilated buildings.
Bristol University has shown that the infectivity of airborne coronavirus can decrease by 90 per cent within 20 minutes of exhalation. The same university also found that singing does not produce substantially more respiratory particles than speaking at a similar volume.
Prof Dingwall added: “Even in human challenge trials, where people have had the virus shoved up their noses, only about half get infected.
“There is very solid evidence that humans do not like to get closer than a metre to each other if they can avoid it and in normal circumstances our breath doesn’t travel more than half a metre.
“More typically, the stuff you exhale will travel about 20cm and it will tend to disperse upwards because it’s hotter than the surrounding air.”