ArticlePhysics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994)2021
Computer simulation of the SARS-CoV-2 contamination risk in a large dental clinic.
Article in Physics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 86 citations in OpenAlex.
- Concern about the risk of aerosol contamination from ultrasonic scaler: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC oral health · 2024Pooled it
- Aerosol Dispersion and Efficacy of Protective Strategies During Dental Procedures.International dental journal · 2025Article
- Aerosol Dynamics in the Respiratory Tract of Food-Producing Animals: An Insight into Transmission Patterns and Deposition Distribution.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Periodic detection and disinfection maintenance of dental unit waterlines in dental simulation head model laboratories.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Reduction of aerosol and droplet dispersions using intraoral and extraoral vacuums for dental treatments with face-up, diagonal and upright positions.BMC oral health · 2024Article
- Precise control of digital dental unit to reduce aerosol and splatter production: new challenges for future epidemics.BMC oral health · 2024Article
- HOCl Rapidly Kills Corona, Flu, and Herpes to Prevent Aerosol Spread.Journal of dental research · 2023Article
- A review on indoor airborne transmission of COVID-19- modelling and mitigation approaches.Journal of building engineering · 2023Review
- Estimating the restraint of SARS-CoV-2 spread using a conventional medical air-cleaning device: Based on an experiment in a typical dental clinical setting.International journal of hygiene and environmental health · 2023Article
- Computational decision-support tools for urban design to improve resilience against COVID-19 and other infectious diseases: A systematic review.Progress in planning · 2023Article
- Quantifying strategies to minimize aerosol dispersion in dental clinics.Experimental and computational multiphase flow · 2023Article
- Bioaerosol distribution characteristics and potential SARS-CoV-2 infection risk in a multi-compartment dental clinic.Building and environment · 2022Article
- Electrospun membranes filtering 100 nm particles from air flow by means of the van der Waals and Coulomb forces.Journal of membrane science · 2022Article
- Risk assessment of COVID infection by respiratory droplets from cough for various ventilation scenarios inside an elevator: An OpenFOAM-based computational fluid dynamics analysis.Physics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994) · 2022Article
- Experimental study of the dispersion of cough-generated droplets from a person going up- or downstairs.AIP advances · 2022Article
- Multizonal modeling of SARS-CoV-2 aerosol dispersion in a virtual office building.Building and environment · 2021Article
- Numerical investigation of droplets in a cross-ventilated space with sitting passengers under asymptomatic virus transmission conditions.Physics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994) · 2021Article
- How the high-volume evacuation alters the flow-field and particle removal characteristics in the mock-up dental clinic.Building and environment · 2021Article
- Effect of recirculation zones on the ventilation of a public washroom.Physics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994) · 2021Article
- Challenges in simulating and modeling the airborne virus transmission: A state-of-the-art review.Physics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994) · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) virus, has been rapidly spreading worldwide since December 2019, causing a public health crisis. Recent studies showed SARS-CoV-2's ability to infect humans via airborne routes. These motivated the study of aerosol and airborne droplet transmission in a variety of settings. This study performs a large-scale numerical simulation of a real-world dentistry clinic that contains aerosol-generating procedures. The simulation tracks the dispersion of evaporating droplets emitted during ultrasonic dental scaling procedures. The simulation considers 25 patient treatment cubicles in an open plan dentistry clinic. The droplets are modeled as having a volatile (evaporating) and nonvolatile fraction composed of virions, saliva, and impurities from the irrigant water supply. The simulated clinic's boundary and flow conditions are validated against experimental measurements of the real clinic. The results evaluate the behavior of large droplets and aerosols. We investigate droplet residence time and travel distance for different droplet diameters, surface contamination due to droplet settling and deposition, airborne aerosol mass concentration, and the quantity of droplets that escape through ventilation. The simulation results raise concerns due to the aerosols' long residence times (averaging up to 7.31 min) and travel distances (averaging up to 24.45 m) that exceed social distancing guidelines. Finally, the results show that contamination extends beyond the immediate patient treatment areas, requiring additional surface disinfection in the clinic. The results presented in this research may be used to establish safer dental clinic operating procedures, especially if paired with future supplementary material concerning the aerosol viral load generated by ultrasonic scaling and the viral load thresholds required to infect humans.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.