[evan_au (OP)]

A recent outbreak of COVID-19 in a Melbourne quarantine hotel is blamed on a quarantine "guest" using a nebulizer for asthma.

Virus apparently spread from one room to the corridor and other rooms across the corridor, as well as other parts of the hotel. And yet security video showed that people did not sneak out of their rooms.

Could the fine mist of a nebulizer spread SARS-COV2 on droplets?

Start video at 25 seconds:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-11/how-did-a-nebuliser-contribute-to-victorias-hotel/13146434?nw=0
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulizer

[set fair]

I know cobber, we've avoded the pandemic so long, lets not bother with vaccination and get on with the open. They shoud be quaranteening people in caravans not hotels.

[Bored chemist]

Could the fine mist of a nebulizer spread SARS-COV2 on droplets?

What were they nebulising?

[Petrochemicals]

Where precisely does the nebuliser have the virus enter? Is it some kind of medicine that allows the virus to feed from it or something?

I know cobber, we've avoded the pandemic so long, lets not bother with vaccination and get on with the open. They shoud be quaranteening people in caravans not hotels.

A tent in a field would be much safer.

[evan_au (OP)]

What were they nebulising?

Apparently they suffered from asthma, and were using the nebuliser to inhale medicine, or maybe just water, to increase humidity and ease their breathing (the news reports were not very specific).

As a person with asthma, COVID-19 risks are higher, and I understand this patient is now in hospital ICU.

Where precisely does the nebuliser have the virus enter?

There are various kinds of nebuliser. But the general idea is to produce a fog of tiny droplets which is breathed down into the lungs.
- When an infected person exhales, they will expel virus particles. The suggestion is that the virus particles might hitch a ride on the tiny droplets, and remain suspended in the air for longer?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulizer

[set fair]

Where precisely does the nebuliser have the virus enter? Is it some kind of medicine that allows the virus to feed from it or something?

I know cobber, we've avoded the pandemic so long, lets not bother with vaccination and get on with the open. They shoud be quaranteening people in caravans not hotels.

A tent in a field would be much safer.

Exactly, every time they put them in hotels the virus gets out, it's madness, repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome. They just don't understand what quaranteening is.

[Petrochemicals]

The virus is hindered by humidity surprisingly

https://www.foxnews.com/science/indoor-humidity-may-slow-coronavirus-spread-yale-scientists-say

[Bored chemist]

Apparently they suffered from asthma, and were using the nebuliser to inhale medicine, or maybe just water, to increase humidity and ease their breathing (the news reports were not very specific).

That would have been my assumption.
Essentially my question was "are they nebulising snot?"
Because, if they were not, the spray couldn't carry the virus.

[evan_au (OP)]

are they nebulising snot?

I think you might have cause & effect reversed, here?

Infected cells bud off virus particles - and the first point of infection is often the alveoli.
- So virus particles could easily be carried off in exhaled breath from the lungs

Mucous secretions and cilia movements in the airways sweep bacteria and dust particles out of the lungs, and this is deposited (and expelled) in snot.
- Snot would certainly capture some virus particles which are released into the lungs
- The sample swab of the nasal passages and throat would capture some of this captured virus
- But its not the primary source - the lungs are

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mucociliary_clearance

I think Alan had a look at virus carried on exhaled breath?

[Bored chemist]

But its not the primary source - the lungs are

Does the nebuliser have lungs capable of supporting the multiplication of the virus?