(STUDY FINDS) -- DAVIS, Calif. — Individuals who aren’t showing symptoms of the coronavirus can still produce enough aerosolized particles by speaking normally to transmit infections, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis. However, the research team is still unsure as to just how prominent a role speech plays when it comes to the spread of the virus.
Aerosols are tiny particles that travel through the air invisibly. Speaking creates a large number of aerosols from respiratory particles, prior research has shown.
“[L]ong ago it was established that ordinary breathing and speech both emit large quantities of aerosol particles. These expiratory particles are typically about 1 micron in diameter, and thus invisible to the naked eye; most people unfamiliar with aerosols are completely unaware that they exist,” the authors write. “The particles are sufficiently large, however, to carry viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, and they are also in the correct size range to be readily inhaled deep into the respiratory tract of a susceptible individual.”
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