ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
The dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity with changes in aerosol microenvironment.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 91 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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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
91 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Indoor Microbiome: Sampling, Analysis and Emerging Trends.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Pooled it
- Viral cultures for assessing airborne infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Pooled it
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19: a systematic review on environmental control measures.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Molecular Origins of the Optical Response of Nile Red in Model Aerosol Aqueous Ionic Environments.The journal of physical chemistry. A · 2026Article
- Mathematical Modeling of Viral RNA Copies in Indoor Environments: Pre-Processor for Risk Assessment and Decision-Making Support Tool for Public Health.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2026Article
- Accounting for the long-distance transmission route: An epidemiological model of airborne disease transmission in hospitals.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Atmospheric water harvesting for humidity control in medical devices for global health.Nature biomedical engineering · 2026Review
- Filamentous morphology of influenza A virus confers enhanced stability in aerosols.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Condensate-Like Organization in Respiratory Aerosols Modulates the Dynamics of an Airborne Virus.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Climate change and infectious diseases.Nature medicine · 2026Review
- Influence of Carbon Dioxide and pH on Influenza Virus in Sessile Saliva Droplets.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- Loss of Infectivity of Influenza Virus and SARS-CoV‑2 during Aerosol Sampling.Environmental science & technology letters · 2026Article
- Organic components modulate the morphology of respirable aerovirology-relevant aerosols.Aerosol science and technology : the journal of the American Association for Aerosol Research · 2026Article
- Organic Components Modulate the Morphology of Respirable Aerovirology-Relevant Aerosols.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Understanding Aerosol-Mediated Disease Transmission.ACS central science · 2025Review
- Article
- Survival and transmission fitness of SARS-CoV-2 over the time-of-flight in an aerosolization chamber.Npj viruses · 2025Article
- A Review of Accidental Aerosol Generation in Laboratories and Laboratory-associated Infections.Applied biosafety : journal of the American Biological Safety Association · 2025Article
- Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 at acidic pH is driven by partial unfolding of spike.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Measurements of Surrogate Respiratory Sessile Droplet pH and Implications for Exhaled Respiratory Aerosol and Airborne Disease Transmission.ACS central science · 2025Article
31 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Understanding the factors that influence the airborne survival of viruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in aerosols is important for identifying routes of transmission and the value of various mitigation strategies for preventing transmission. We present measurements of the stability of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosol droplets (∼5 to 10 µm equilibrated radius) over timescales spanning 5 s to 20 min using an instrument to probe survival in a small population of droplets (typically 5 to 10) containing ∼1 virus/droplet. Measurements of airborne infectivity change are coupled with a detailed physicochemical analysis of the airborne droplets containing the virus. A decrease in infectivity to ∼10% of the starting value was observable for SARS-CoV-2 over 20 min, with a large proportion of the loss occurring within the first 5 min after aerosolization. The initial rate of infectivity loss was found to correlate with physical transformation of the equilibrating droplet; salts within the droplets crystallize at relative humidities (RHs) below 50%, leading to a near-instant loss of infectivity in 50 to 60% of the virus. However, at 90% RH, the droplet remains homogenous and aqueous, and the viral stability is sustained for the first 2 min, beyond which it decays to only 10% remaining infectious after 10 min. The loss of infectivity at high RH is consistent with an elevation in the pH of the droplets, caused by volatilization of CO
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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.