Video shows how coughing on airplane can spread coronavirus

While the novel coronavirus continues to wreak all sorts of havoc across the globe, a new visualisation has emerged showing exactly how a single cough on an airplane can spread the deadly virus through a cabin.

Purdue University, Indiana produced the visualisation to depict how coronavirus pathogens travel far further than expected.

It shows saliva droplets from a single cough cause a plume of germs, which then spread throughout the plane. At least ten people in close proximity to the one who coughs are shown as most at-risk, but some bugs spread to each corner of the cabin.

The motion graphics shows viruses that are airborne, meaning they linger in the air. But scientists aren’t completely sure SARS-CoV-2 fits into this category. Some evidence suggests that droplets from a Covid-19 positive person may travel through the air of offices, restaurants and planes via air conditioning.

The graphic shows how tiny invisible droplets from a single cough can flow through the cabin of a Boeing 767 passenger jet.

It was produced in 2014 to study infectious-disease transmission on aircraft so they can inform on optimal and safe ventilation systems.

Qingyan Chen and colleagues wrote: “Infectious diseases, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian flu, can cause significant social and economic disruption.

“The transmissions of infectious diseases could take place in commercial airliner cabins.”

The model was based on the assumption that the 2003 SARS virus was an airborne disease, which means the germs from a person’s breathe, sneeze or cough can linger in the air and travel because the droplets are very small in size.

COVID-19, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said, is primarily transmitted between people through respiratory droplets, which are much larger in size. Larger droplets only travel short distances before falling to the floor, which is why it the safe social distance recommended between people is two metres.

Aerosols, on the other hand, are small and can linger in the air for longer and travel further – such as that seen in the visualisation.

Evidence suggests that air conditioning may propagate infected droplets round confined spaces like an airplane.