The current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak vividly demonstrates the acute global danger emanating from a local event in a hyperconnected world. A key public health challenge is the immediate reduction in host-to-host transmission events, particularly in front-line healthcare workers taking direct care of COVID-19 patients. Such patients often have to undergo medical procedures that induce respiratory emissions and thereby put healthcare workers at risk. This RAPID project aims to reduce the host-to-host transmission of COVID-19 during such “aerosol†emission-producing medical procedures by developing, testing, and deploying fluid-dynamics-based solutions at the patient’s bedside that can essentially syphon off the emissions coming from a patient and protect healthcare workers and other personnel.
This RAPID project seeks to develop such non-pharmacologic containment approaches by first visualizing and quantifying the multiphase nature of respiratory emissions during exhalations, coughs, and aerosol-generating medical procedures pertinent to COVID-19 patients. Based on that quantification, the project will model and quantify the impact of locally applied multiphase flow control for containing, diverting, and collecting the pathogen-laden emissions from the patient and thus reduce exposure to healthcare providers. Finally, the project will develop rapid prototype systems for deployment at the patient’s bedside in clinically relevant settings. The benefits of the project to healthcare professionals and the public rest with the rapid development of concrete and actionable non-pharmacological interventions to curb host-to-host transmission of respiratory infectious diseases and in particular protection of healthcare workers at the frontline of this historic pandemic.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
