This video shows just how easily COVID-19 could spread when people sing together

We took high-speed video of a person singing a major scale, as do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do (seen below, without audio). We then tracked the emissions of droplets and aerosols.

We found certain notes, such as “do” and “fa”, generated more aerosols than others. We also found the direction of emissions changed with different consonants.

Infection control guidelines assume respiratory droplets settle rapidly within one to two metres of the person emitting them.

However, most droplets we observed appeared not to settle rapidly, and tended to follow the ambient airflow.

Therefore, without adequate ventilation, these droplets may persist in aerosol clouds.

By Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, University of New South Wales