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Coronavirus particles spread by talking can remain in the air for up to 14 minutes, NIH researchers find

"Speech droplets generated by asymptomatic carriers... are increasingly considered to be a likely mode of disease transmission," researchers at the National Institutes of Health found. (CNBC)

A recent study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health has found that particles of the coronavirus released by talking can remain in the air for 8 to 14 minutes, a warning sign that airborne transmission may be even more widespread than previously thought.
While it’s been long accepted that coughing and sneezing can transmit respiratory viruses through droplets, it’s less known that just regular talking produces thousands of oral fluid droplets, the scientists behind the study said.
“There is a substantial probability that normal speaking causes airborne virus transmission in confined environments,” the research, published in last week’s edition of the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded.
“Speech droplets generated by asymptomatic carriers of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are increasingly considered to be a likely mode of disease transmission,” the study, entitled “The airborne lifetime of small speech droplets and their potential importance in SARS-CoV-2 transmission,” found.

And loud talkers present a bigger risk: “Highly sensitive laser light scattering observations have revealed that loud speech can emit thousands of oral fluid droplets per second,” it said.
While Covid-19 is less deadly than SARS, it is far more easily transmitted, and scientists are still working to understand the extent to which it can be spread and how long it can survive. That data has huge ramifications for how we interact with one another and what kinds of spaces and activities are considered safe.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/19/coronavirus-spread-by-talking-can-remain-in-air-researchers-find.html