Extended Lifetime of Respiratory Droplets in a Turbulent Vapor Puff and Its Implications on Airborne Disease Transmission

To quantify the fate of respiratory droplets under different ambient relative humidities, direct numerical simulations of a typical respiratory event are performed. We found that, because small droplets (with initial diameter of 10um) are swept by turbulent eddies in the expelled humid puff, their lifetime gets extended by a factor of more than 30 times as compared to what is suggested by the classical picture by William F. Wells, for 50%...