, the Mater’s professor of surgery, have displayed how droplets can travel more than two metres from a starting point and linger in the air for more than an hour.
“We can see that large droplets fall quickly to the ground while smaller particles which can contain the virus linger in the atmosphere,” Dr Nolan said. “When someone with Covid-19 coughs or sneezes some of the particles carry the virus and others don’t, which is why I refer to it as Russian roulette.”He said his research had shown that wearing masks had a dramatic impact on how far droplets could travel.
The Schlieren technology has limitations and does not cover great distances so over the summer the academic based at the Mater hospital devised an experiment using high-powered lasers to show just how the far droplets can travel and how long they can stay airborne.
Tests not calibrated may be resulting in false positives, generating false spikes leading to unnecessary lockdown.