The cough of a COVID-19 infected subject contaminates a large volume of surrounding air
with coronavirus due to the entrainment of surrounding air in the jet-like flow created by
the cough. In the present work, we estimate this volume of the air, which may help us to
design ventilation of closed spaces and, consequently, reduce the spread of the disease.
Recent experiments [P. P. Simha and P. S. M. Rao, “Universal trends in human cough
airflows at large distances,” Phys. Fluids
32
, 081905 (2020)] have shown that
the velocity in a cough-cloud decays exponentially with distance. We analyze the data
further to estimate the volume of the cough-cloud in the presence and absence of a face
mask. Assuming a self-similar nature of the cough-cloud, we find that the volume entrained
in the cloud varies as
0.666
,
where
c
is the spread rate and
d
c
is the final distance traveled by the
cough-cloud. The volume of the cough-cloud without a mask is about 7 and 23 times larger
than in the presence of a surgical mask and an N95 mask, respectively. We also find that
the cough-cloud is present for 5 s–8 s, after which the cloud starts dissipating,
irrespective of the presence or absence of a mask. Our analysis suggests that the
cough-cloud finally attains the room temperature, while remaining slightly more moist than
the surrounding. These findings are expected to have implications in understanding the
spread of coronavirus, which is reportedly airborne.