2023 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 191-199
Since January 2020, the cases of infection with the novel coronavirus in Japan have increased drastically. It became an emerging infectious disease resulting in high infections and deaths. To date, the main infection control measures were avoidance of sealing, social distancing, ventilation, and disinfection. Since the early stages of the epidemic, partitions were installed in restaurants and other places as physical barriers to prevent direct droplet infection. In this study, the capability of different partition shapes to effectively block the virus-containing droplets was studied.
Subsequently, we designed and sprayed a smoke produced by the generator mimicking the virus-containing droplets sneezed by humans and evaluated the effectiveness of the different partition shapes in preventing droplet infection. The smoke failed to migrate to the opposite side of the partition for all the shapes.
Particularly, partitions with wall panels on both sides completely blocked the smoke diffusion to either side of the partition. Thus, this partition type most effectively prevented the spread of the smoke.
