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COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building

Minimizing all aspects of COVID-19 exposure is a high priority as universities prepare to reopen. One of those aspects includes developing protocols for interior spaces such as academic buildings. This paper applies mathematical modeling to investigate different virus exposure levels due to traffic...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Romero, Van, Stone, William D., Ford, Julie Dyke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7409726/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34173461
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100185
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author Romero, Van
Stone, William D.
Ford, Julie Dyke
author_facet Romero, Van
Stone, William D.
Ford, Julie Dyke
author_sort Romero, Van
collection PubMed
description Minimizing all aspects of COVID-19 exposure is a high priority as universities prepare to reopen. One of those aspects includes developing protocols for interior spaces such as academic buildings. This paper applies mathematical modeling to investigate different virus exposure levels due to traffic patterns within academic buildings. The assumption used are: 1) Risk of infection is a product of exposure rate and time and 2) the exposure rate decreases with distance. One-way vs. two-way pedestrian traffic scenarios within hallways were modeled and analyzed for various configurations. The underlying assumption that a small exposure to a large number of people is similar to a large exposure to a few people is the driver to minimize exposures levels in all aspects. The analysis indicates that minimizing the time spent in passing between classes is the driving factor in minimizing risk, and one-way traffic may increase the time required to pass between classes. While the case presented is limited, the modeled approaches are intended to provoke future research that can be extended and applied to larger populations to help provide decision makers with more rigorous tools to shape future policies regarding traffic flow within buildings.
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spelling pubmed-74097262020-08-07 COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building Romero, Van Stone, William D. Ford, Julie Dyke Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives Article Minimizing all aspects of COVID-19 exposure is a high priority as universities prepare to reopen. One of those aspects includes developing protocols for interior spaces such as academic buildings. This paper applies mathematical modeling to investigate different virus exposure levels due to traffic patterns within academic buildings. The assumption used are: 1) Risk of infection is a product of exposure rate and time and 2) the exposure rate decreases with distance. One-way vs. two-way pedestrian traffic scenarios within hallways were modeled and analyzed for various configurations. The underlying assumption that a small exposure to a large number of people is similar to a large exposure to a few people is the driver to minimize exposures levels in all aspects. The analysis indicates that minimizing the time spent in passing between classes is the driving factor in minimizing risk, and one-way traffic may increase the time required to pass between classes. While the case presented is limited, the modeled approaches are intended to provoke future research that can be extended and applied to larger populations to help provide decision makers with more rigorous tools to shape future policies regarding traffic flow within buildings. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2020-09 2020-08-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7409726/ /pubmed/34173461 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100185 Text en © 2020 The Authors Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Romero, Van
Stone, William D.
Ford, Julie Dyke
COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building
title COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building
title_full COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building
title_fullStr COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building
title_short COVID-19 indoor exposure levels: An analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building
title_sort covid-19 indoor exposure levels: an analysis of foot traffic scenarios within an academic building
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7409726/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34173461
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2020.100185
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