Pollen and Airborne Viral Infections

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0055845

Commentary

This study was prompted by concerns that aerial pollen pellets (or grains) can cause serious respiratory-related problems in humans.

Theoretically, if pollen pellets can capture ribonucleic acid viruses, this could explain why airborne pollen grains may be able to transport airborne viral particles, such as airborne coronavirus (CoV) disease (COVID-19). Considering the environmental conditions of the season with the highest pollen concentrations, computational multiphysics, multi-scale modeling and simulation, the study examined aerial pollen falling from a mature willow tree at a wind speed of 4 concerning the prototype problem, with 10 transports. (Uw i n d= 4 km / h) 

The results show how pollen grains increase the rate of coronavirus (CoV) transmission in groups of people, including infected individuals, and illustrate that a social distance of 2 m is not a viable health safety measure for outdoor crowds when pollen grain concentrations are high in the air or during spring pollination. Therefore, it is explained that public authorities need to revise their social distance expansion guidelines with reference to the results of this study.

In order to understand the results, it is explained that setting the social distance to 2m is useless during the pollen season such as March to May, when there is not enough wind flow in the crowded environment. Therefore, he suggested that we may want to take this result into consideration when spending time outdoors as an anti-virus measure.