Influences of Obstacle Factors on the Transmission Trends of Respiratory
Infectious Diseases in Indoor Public Places
Abstract
Public facilities are important transmission places for respiratory
infectious diseases (e.g., COVID-19), due to the frequent crowd
interactions inside. Usually, changes of obstacle factors can affect the
movements of human crowds and result in different epidemic transmission
among individuals. Most related studies only focus on the specific
scenarios, but the common rules are usually ignored for the impacts of
obstacles’ spatial elements on the epidemic transmission. To tackle
these problems, this study aims to evaluate the impacts of three spatial
factors of obstacles (i.e., size, quantity, and placement) on infection
spreading trends in two-dimension, which can provide scientific and
concise spatial design guidelines for indoor public places. Firstly, we
used the obstacle area proportion as the indicator of the size factor,
gave the mathematical expression of the quantity factor, and proposed
the walkable-space distribution indicator to represent the placement
factor. Secondly, two epidemic spreading indicators (i.e., daily new
cases and people’s average exposure risk) were estimated based on the
fundamental model named exposure risk with the virion-laden droplets,
which forecasted the disease spreading between individuals accurately.
Thirdly, 120 indoor scenarios were built and simulated, based on which
the value of independent and dependent variables can be measured.
Besides, the Pearson correlation analysis and linear regression analysis
were employed to examine the relations between obstacle factors and
epidemic transmissions. Finally, several design guidelines were provided
for policymakers to mitigate the disease spreading: minimizing the size
of obstacles; increasing the obstacle quantity and adopting the uniform
obstacle placement by lifting the smallest size of the walkable convex
space.