I presume 12 feet is a quarter of the risk of 6 feet [...] there is no magic number
My intuitive oversimplified model of this has been analogous to the direct sound vs reverberant sound in acoustics (in slow motion).
I’d expect the risk from direct viruses to follow the inverse square law (at least to the extent that the risk is linear to the expected number of viruses around you, which can’t be true for high risks). And maybe be even be reduced by cloth masks which stop big droplets (?).
But the reverberant viruses are supposed to be the main drivers of the pandemic, right? And those don’t care about distance for small enough rooms where virosols (heh) have more than enough time to travel everywhere before falling down. This is where N95s and ventilation become crucial, but distancing not so much.
In this model, there is a special distance, a “critical distance” (which depends on the context, masking, etc), after which the direct viruses are as important as the virosols and extra distancing starts not mattering.
My intuitive oversimplified model of this has been analogous to the direct sound vs reverberant sound in acoustics (in slow motion).
I’d expect the risk from direct viruses to follow the inverse square law (at least to the extent that the risk is linear to the expected number of viruses around you, which can’t be true for high risks). And maybe be even be reduced by cloth masks which stop big droplets (?).
But the reverberant viruses are supposed to be the main drivers of the pandemic, right? And those don’t care about distance for small enough rooms where virosols (heh) have more than enough time to travel everywhere before falling down. This is where N95s and ventilation become crucial, but distancing not so much.
In this model, there is a special distance, a “critical distance” (which depends on the context, masking, etc), after which the direct viruses are as important as the virosols and extra distancing starts not mattering.
Is my intuitive model nonsense?