A psychrometric model to assess the biological decay of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in aerosols

  1. Clive B. Beggs
  2. Eldad J. Avital

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Abstract

There is increasing evidence that the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has been influenced by variations in air temperature and humidity. However, the impact that these environmental parameters have on survival of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not been fully characterised. Therefore, an analytical study was undertaken using published data to develop a psychrometric model to assess the biological decay rate of the virus in aerosols. This revealed that it is possible to describe with reasonable accuracy ( R 2 = 0.718, p < 0.001) the biological decay constant for the SARS-CoV-2 virus using a regression model with enthalpy, vapour pressure and specific volume as predictors. Applying this to historical meteorological data from London, Paris and Milan over the pandemic period, produced results which indicate that the average half-life of the virus in aerosols outdoors was in the region 13–22 times longer in March 2020, when the outbreak was accelerating, than it was in August 2020 when epidemic in Europe was at its nadir. However, indoors, this variation is likely to be much less. As such, this suggests that changes in virus survivability due the variations in the psychrometric qualities of the air might influence the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

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  1. Version published to 10.7717/peerj.11024
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.29.20240408: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Although we have characterised a strong relationship between survival of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in aerosols and air enthalpy, VP and SV, we are aware that our study has several noticeable limitations. Chief amongst these is our reliance on a limited dataset collected by disparate researchers, using a variety of experimental procedures. Furthermore, when calculating the psychrometric parameters we used the mean temperature and RH values reported in the respective publications, which meant that we could not compute any margins of error. Notwithstanding this, because of the ensemble approach taken and the strength of the linear relationship observed in Figure 1 and Table 3, which we cross-validated, it suggests that our findings and conclusions are valid. Having said this, we recommend that our results be treated, as being indicative only and that further experimental work should be undertaken to refine our findings.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.29.20240408v1 on medRxiv