The particles themselves can stay airborne almost indefinitely as micron to submicron particles are so weakly attracted by gravity the slightest fluid flow movement keeps them airborne. The particles themselves will dilute with increasing distance and at some point the viral load will be to low to cause infection. For a single infected human this will be 2 to 10 meters depends on minimum viral load to ensure infection, velocity of air movement and supply of fresh gasses vs recycled gasses basically outside in wind vs inside of a store or bus or airplane.
I have done plume studies of H2S and benzene gasses for the oil industry it’s one of the scientific services I provide as a consulting scientist.
Thanks for this important information! I thought there were a lot of clues to this being aerosolized aside from the reports (a CDC official even said it to one of the cruise ship families)... then clues were:
-how many people are getting it in a closed area with an infected person
-how many healthcare people are getting it
-the kind of PPE our guys wore on that first evacuee flight home (suits with their own air system). They didn’t do that the second time
-Wuhan telling everyone turn off their hvac, barricading entire hi rises for a case, not just one apartment
-Hong Kong evacuation of entire apartment building for a case
-China and now South Korea spraying ?? on the streets by the bus loads
-there’s been other things that I can’t think of for the moment
I have done plume studies
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There was a study done during the SARS outbreak where single fart plume infected 62 people.