COVID-19 has completely changed the face of travel as we know it, with a vastly reduced number of people taking flights and public transport – but our cars have remained a mystery. How safe are we in our vehicles? What are our risks?
A study published by Science Advances in early January has begun to answer some of our most pressing questions about COVID-19 transmission in our vehicles. Four scientists from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Broown university uses computationally floud dynamics to evaluate the risks of the virus in the cabin of a vehicle and have also suggested ways to reduce the risk.
If you are familiar with the design process racing car or airplane, then you have probably come across computational fluid dynamics before. Essentially, these computer simulations model how gases and liquids move over and through different surfaces. In this particular case, our scientists have used CFD to model the way air moves in a car.
The simulated vehicle used in the study was loosely based on a Toyota Prius traveling at 80 km / h and carrying two passengers: a driver in the front left of the car and a passenger in the rear right. Interestingly, the air flow Outside the moving car creates a pressure gradient within the car that circulates air from the rear of the car to the front. Then they started modeling the indoor airflow with different combinations of open or closed windows. It is important to note that regardless of the combination, the air conditioning was on.
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The results are unlikely to be surprising. When all four windows were closed, the car was the worst ventilated, so 8 to 10 percent of the aerosol cans – on which COVID-19 travels – exhaled by one person in the car traveled to another. If all the windows were open, the car ventilated at best, with only 0.2 to two percent of the aerosols switching between passengers.
Of course, wide-open windows are not always practical when driving. In the north you froze in winter. In the south, someone with a fragile constitution will melt in the summer. A heavy rain shower will make it doubly miserable. So it turned out to be better to have both driver and passenger roll down their windows than to keep everything closed. That diagonal The configuration allows air to flow in and then out again. It may not be comfortable, but it can save lives.
A later study not yet published found that cracking windows halfway through was also a good idea, but rolling them only a quarter of the way down was significantly more dangerous, New York Times reports. For larger vehicles such as minivans or for vehicles that transport more people, the recommendation is to keep everything open.
Opening windows has been recommended since the beginning of the virus. Due to the increased ventilation, virus particles can be carried away instead of recirculated. And we also know that the smaller the space we share, the more likely we are to interchange aerosol particles. This study basically just used science to give us the ideal strategy for things like rides or short trips outside of your bubble.
Of course, there are still dangers even when opening your windows. Basically driving with your windows open increases air pollution in the car by 80 percent, increasing your chance of death from air pollution.
Of course, the best option is to stay at home unless absolutely necessary, and if you are traveling, to do so during off-peak hours.