新型冠状病毒在家庭环境中的主要传播途径

通过构建数学模型,定量研究了 1个3人家庭环境中飞沫传播、接触传播和气溶胶传播在COVID-19传播中的作用.研究表明,飞沫传播和接触传播在COVID-19传播中起着最重要的作用.和患者交流时保持1.5～2 m的空间距离对控制飞沫传播至关重要,洗手和保护环境表面清洁是控制接触传播的最有效手段.虽然通过气溶胶途径传播风险...

Exploring dominant transmission routes of COVID-19 in households

By June 19, 2020, there had been 84940 COVID-19 confirmed cases in China, in which 83% of the clustered infections occurred within families. Thus, exploring the relative contributions of different transmission routes is significant for developing efficient intervention strategies in household. In this study, we build a mathematical model to quantify the relative degrees of importance of airborne, droplet and contact route in COVID-19 transmission in household environments. We find that the droplet and contact routes play the dominant role in COVID-19 transmission in household. Keeping a 1.5-2 m distance when communicating with the infector is the key intervention to control droplet transmission. Hand hygiene and surface cleaning are significant for controlling contact transmission. The infection risk by airborne route is relatively small, however, when the virus concentration in the droplets exhaled by the infector is high (possibly super-spreader), e. g. 107 mRNA copy/mL, the infection risk via the airborne route can be as high as 26%. This study may provide a theoretical guidance for developing targeted interventions in household environments.