{"doi":"10.1073/pnas.2200109119","title":"The dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity with changes in aerosol microenvironment","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 2 from bicarbonate buffer within the droplet. Four different variants of SARS-CoV-2 were compared and found to have a similar degree of airborne stability at both high and low RH.","journal":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","year":2022,"id":232593,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":181,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9668,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":843601,"name":"Allen E. Haddrell","orcid":"0000-0003-0296-2791","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843602,"name":"Mara Otero-Fernandez","orcid":"0000-0003-3549-850X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":436301,"name":"Jamie F. S. Mann","orcid":"0000-0001-7037-1286","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843603,"name":"Tristan A. Cogan","orcid":"0000-0003-0054-4940","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843604,"name":"Thomas G. Hilditch","orcid":"0000-0002-5673-9301","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843605,"name":"Jianghan Tian","orcid":"0000-0002-5137-3363","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843606,"name":"Daniel Hardy","orcid":"0000-0003-0550-5318","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843607,"name":"Darryl J. Hill","orcid":"0000-0002-5743-5078","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843608,"name":"Adam Finn","orcid":"0000-0003-1756-5668","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":683305,"name":"Andrew D. Davidson","orcid":"0000-0002-1136-4008","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843609,"name":"Jonathan P. Reid","orcid":"0000-0001-6022-1778","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":843600,"name":"Henry P. Oswin","orcid":"0000-0002-4183-8593","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":79,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:21:18.683916Z","pmid":"35763573","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}