Researchers reveal the best way to cut Covid risk when travelling in the car

With the majority of UK adults now ‘double-jabbed’ and restrictions all but removed, more and more people will be taking road trips with friends and family.

With this in mind, it’s good news that researchers at Swansea University have revealed the best way to cut the risk of transmitting Covid-19 in the car.

The research team was supported by the Institute for Innovative Materials, Processing and Numerical Technologies (IMPACT) and has found the best way to optimise ventilation within a vehicle.

Their advice starts with opening all windows when travelling below 30mph, but above that speed it’s more effective to occasionally open windows diagonally from one another. For example, the driver’s and passenger side rear window.

In their studies, doing this while keeping the other two windows closed created a more dominant air flow through the car than any other combination of open windows.

It’s said to be so effective that it’s only necessary to do this for about 10 seconds at a time every five or 10 minutes. However, it’s also suggested to do so if someone coughs or sneezes.

Project lead Professor Chenfeng Li said: “When a Covid-19 patient coughs, saliva containing the virus is expelled in the form of droplets. Large-size droplets fall quickly to the ground, while small-size droplets evaporate quickly.

“These droplets of saliva disappear in the air in seconds, but the small-size droplets release the contained virus into the air after evaporation, which can survive up to an hour and remain infectious.

“The virus can survive on surfaces and remain infectious for different periods of time, depending on the surface type. It is the dispersing of these small droplets that we focused on in our study.”

As well as suggesting opening windows, the researchers found that it was safer to sit in the front of the car. This is because ventilation systems tend to push the air to the rear of the car where it can become trapped.

Furthermore, wearing a mask reduced transmission of the virus by 90 per cent, while intake of the virus was reduced by 70 per cent.