What researchers at Western University, in collaboration with virologists from Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital, found is that when someone coughs without covering their mouth, the germ-laden cloud of fine mist they release will not only travel two metres in three seconds, it will continue to travel beyond and even float in the air within that two-metre area for up to three minutes after being released.
Savory said what researchers found is that when a person coughs and doesn't cover their mouth, there's almost no avoiding the cloud of germs they expel if you're standing directly in front of that person, even at two metres away.
"If a person coughs unobstructedly, then the cough jet that they produce travels quite a long way. Even at a metre away the cough jet is moving about a metre a second, which is quite difficult to avoid."