new delhi a canadian study on flu has clear implications for covid19 as it found that an unobstructed cough could travel over two metres six feet in less than three seconds and keep goingfirst reported by the south china morning post on thursday the study was led by canadas western university and has been accepted for publication in the journal indoor air was done in the 201718 flu season well before the covid19 struckcoronavirus lockdown latest updateseven when you are 25 metres away the airflow in the cough can still be moving at 200mm eight inches a second said eric savory professor from department of mechanical and materials engineering at western universitythe very fine droplets are going to remain suspended for a long time even after four secondsaccording to the world health organisation who the virus is transmitted through respiratory droplets and contact routesanother study this month by an mit researcher claimed that new coronavirus droplets could travel up to 27 feet as a sneeze or a cough results in a turbulent gas cloud that could contain sarscov2 dropletsmore on covid19 coronavirus pandemic complete coverage coronavirus what are the symptoms 52 testing sites for coronavirus in india helpline numbers for states and uts do fever and cough mean you need covid19 test how to stay safe how to quarantine yourself at homein a paper published in the journal of the american medical association jama lydia bourouiba associate professor at mit and an expert in fluid dynamics has suggested to revise social distancing of six feet 2 metres to limit the risk of exposure as well as currently used surgical and n95 masks which are not tested for these potential characteristics of respiratory emissionsin india the health ministry has asked citizens to ensure physical distancing of minimum 1 metre or three feetrecent work has demonstrated that exhalations sneezes and coughs not only consist of mucosalivary droplets following shortrange semiballistic emission trajectories but importantly are primarily made of a multiphase turbulent gas a puff cloud that entrains ambient air and traps and carries within it clusters of droplets with a continuum of droplet sizes bourouiba emphasizedthe locally moist and warm atmosphere within the turbulent gas cloud allows the contained droplets to evade evaporation for much longer than occurs with isolated dropletsunder these conditions the lifetime of a droplet could be considerably extended by a factor of up to 1000 from a fraction of a second to minutes said bourouibadr anthony fauci the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases however urged caution with the mit study during a white house briefingthis could really be terribly misleading he said adding that it would apply only to people with extremely strong sneezesan earlier research by the centers for disease control and prevention cdc revealed that the coronavirus rna was present even after 17 days on a diamond princess cruise ship in japan