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Before the emergence and world-wide spreading of SARS-CoV-2, the medical community considered that pathogen transmission associated with respiratory droplets occurred via three mutually non-exclusive transmission modes: contact, droplet, and airborne (or aerosol) transmission. The extensive research efforts since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic have questioned this well-specified demarcation of respiratory-disease transmission modes.
I will describe the transmission modes and provide a historical explanation of the initial reluctance of international health authorities to consider viral airborne transmission as an important transmission mode, and hence to suggest appropriate non-pharmaceutical intervention measures. I will argue that the coupling of respiratory-droplet dynamics (growth, transport) with biological processes (pathogen infectivity and inactivation, host immune system) and behavioral patterns (inter-personal contacts, exposure duration) leads to a compartmental epidemiological model that incorporates the dynamics of a population of infectious respiratory droplets.The predictions of the resulting SIDR (Susceptible-Infectious-Droplet-Recovered) model for the development of a generic respiratory-disease epidemic (SARS-CoV-2 data were used in the simulations) will be presented. Implications for public health decisions and the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions, like indoor ventilation, to curve the epidemic wave will be emphasized. I will conclude with a more detailed, SARS-CoV-2 inspired, reaction-diffusion model to reproduce the spatio-temporal evolution of the first Covid-19 epidemic wave in Greece.
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