Link between exercise intensity and risk of infection

Prof. Henning Wackerhage has investigated how exercise intensity and aerosol emissions are related during sports. Image: Andreas Heddergott / TUM - Until now there has been no clarity on how exercise intensity affects the emission and concentration of aerosol particles in exhaled air. With a new experimental setup, a Munich research team has shown that aerosol emissions increase exponentially with intense physical exertion - so that indoor sporting activities result in a higher risk of infectious diseases such as COVID. Before the study it was known that the respiratory volume for untrained people increases from around 5-15 liters per minute at rest to over 100 l/min when exercising. Highly trained athletes actually reach levels of 200 l/min. It was also known that many people have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus when exercising indoors. However, it was unclear how exercise intensity was linked to the concentration of aerosol particles in exhaled air and the actual quantity of aerosols exhaled by an individual per minute and thus on the potential risk of spreading infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2.