Covid Masks and Respiratory Droplets
Reviewed and submitted by Stew Gillmor
An interesting experiment was recently reported in the physics journals Physics of Fluids and Physics Today. Physicists positioned a masked mannequin in front of a camera and pumped bursts of a vaporized liquid mixture out of the month. They photographed the tests using a green laser to picture the droplets. When the mannequin wore a stitched mask of two layers of cotton quilting, the cough projected on average 2.5 inches. With a single layer of T-shirt material, the cough traveled 3.5 feet on average. With no mask, the simulated cough droplets traveled 8 FEET. Wearing an efficient mask protects OTHERS around you from breathing the nano-droplets of the virus. This experiment shows clearly the importance of wearing an efficient mask during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to protect those persons around you, even those 6 feet away. For a fascinating photo taken of the simulated cough, taken with the green laser, see Physics Today, August 2020, page 60.
