Airborne transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Ventilated Healthcare Premise

H. Miloua

Abstract


In the present work, a numerical investigation was carried out of Covid-19 transmission from suspected or confirmed patients of Coronavirus Disease to medical staff in quarantine or isolation rooms of healthcare settings equipped with a mechanical ventilation systems. A description of various ventilation systems was presented to tackling the covid-19 dispersion. Without a science-based approach and recommended advice from researchers, such strategies of ventilation result in unknowing high-risk behavior. In this study, a Coronavirus is considered as airborne and presented by very tiny respiratory droplet. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the effect of ventilation mode in the distribution of airborne contaminants in high risk area in public health hospitals. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code is used to optimize the indoor air flow which carries Covd-19 released respiratory droplet assumed as aerosol and airborne and their transmission from person-to-person over short distances in patient rooms. The governing equations for turbulent flow were presented by the Navier-Stokes equations, solved with a vortex viscosity closure method using a Vreman Model for a calculation of the turbulent viscosity and Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) model of turbulent flow. Adaptive mesh refinement and Lagrangian particle methods can be utilized to simulate airflow pattern and release respiratory droplet transport under ventilation conditions in single patient rooms in order to reduce the risk of cross infection. We deduced that a preventive numerical simulation can play a crucial role in protecting the medical staff from airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 spreading in ventilated healthcare premises.

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References


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