A virologist from the Leicester Royal Infirmary explained how people can use the ‘garlic breath test’ to ensure they’re safe against catching Coronavirus infection.
Dr. Julian Tang, a virologist from the Leicester Royal Infirmary, is encouraging health officials and leaders to focus on stopping airborne transmission of the virus.
He said: “So the message ‘hands, face, space’, we think should be really ‘space, space, hands’. The way this virus transmits is really through conversational distance, within one metre.”
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Dr. Tang said that if a person could get a sniff of food on their friend’s breath, they could also be standing close enough to catch Coronavirus.
He further detailed: “When you’re talking to a friend or sharing the same air as you’re listening to your friend talking, we call it the garlic-breath distance.
“So if you can smell your friend’s lunch you’re inhaling some of that air as well as any virus that’s inhaled with it.
“And this is why we say that masking is fine, social distancing is fine, but the indoor airborne environment needs to be improved and that can be done with ventilation.”
The UK Government previously presented a campaign requesting Brits to keep their homes ventilated by keeping windows and doors open when people come to visit. Allowing fresh air into spaces can reduce the risk of catching the virus by up to 70%.
Dr. Tang further added: “If you think about it, if you burn your toast in the kitchen, if you open the windows and doors, the back door, it clears very quickly.
“So you keep the windows open even halfway most of the time, then you can improve that ventilation rate in the indoor area and that reduces the overall airborne concentration that you can actually then reduce the risk of transmission from.
“I think this is a really kind of addition to what people are doing, the social distancing, the masking. But if you’re indoors having a drink or eating, you can’t mask, you can’t maintain social distance, so the ventilation becomes much more important precautionarily.”