Latest Technology - The animation that reveals coughs and sneezes can travel far further than we thought

The study by MIT researchers found that coughs and sneezes are far more adept at spreading viruses than they had thought.

They say the discovery means office ventilation systems play a far bigger role in spreading disease that previously thought.

'When you cough or sneeze, you see the droplets, or feel them if someone sneezes on you,' said John Bush, who led the research.
'But you don’t see the cloud, the invisible gas phase.

'The influence of this gas cloud is to extend the range of the individual droplets, particularly the small ones.'
Researchers founds the smaller droplets that emerge in a cough or sneeze may travel five to 200 times further than they would if those droplets simply moved as groups of unconnected particles — which is what previous estimates had assumed.
The tendency of these droplets to stay airborne, resuspended by gas clouds, means that ventilation systems may be more prone to transmitting potentially infectious particles than had been suspected.