Viruses don't diffuse through the air like smoke. Viruses are contained within the aerosolised droplets of your bodily fluids that are ejected through sneezing, coughing, blowing the nose. The survival of the virus outside of the body exposed to the elements is limited. Viruses have limited lifespans and can only reproduce within the medium of the bodily fluid. Every virus has different characteristics, and may have a longer or shorter lifespan. These characteristics are more or less universal for viruses though. It's not impossible for them to travel longer distances through the air. For the most part they are limited to the initial propulsion from the body. A better analogy would be spraying an aerosol can and watching how the droplets settle.

Light a cigarette and see if you can smell it from six feet away.

I think a better comparison would be to try inhaling wet steam (i.e. a suspension of liquid H2O) from behind a face shield. You'll probably inhale some, but a lot of it will adhere to the shield.

Yeah, that is pretty much what I'm imagining. If someone tried to smoke behind a facemask it seems pretty likely that most of the smoke will be caught behind the mask then drift out behind them like a comet trail, or move up/down. Only small wisps would end up traveling forward to where I'd be standing for conversation. The doses of virus would be diluted very rapidly which is helpful.

Ideal scenario would be most of the smoke gets pushed down in a knee-wards direction, which is well within the realm of the imaginable.

>If someone tried to smoke behind a facemask it seems pretty likely that most of the smoke will be caught behind the mask then drift out behind them like a comet trail, or move up/down. Only small wisps would end up traveling forward to where I'd be standing for conversation.

You ARE the person in the faceshield (I assume you meant that instead of facemask), you don't control what other people do so assume they uncovered. The smoke is in the air, it can reach you. Will it get around that shield or not?

How could me wearing a face shield help protect me from catching the virus? It'd be mostly useless; although obviously as mentioned it'd stop me touching my face as much as normal.

This is all about containing the spread.

Although I suppose in hindsight that explains why people were downvoting me.

> it seems pretty likely that most of the smoke will be caught

If your plan is to only block most of the virus then perhaps you should rethink it.

It's like stating that a hole in the hull is not a problem because the rest of the ship keeps most of the water out.

Actually initial viral load seems to be a factor in how severe the disease gets. So keeping any percentage more out of you that you can helps..

This is potentially misleading. Viral load is a significant factor in the seriousness of most infectious diseases. This is why you'll likely be ok if you pass a coughing TB patient in the street and inhale a few bacteria, but are much more prone to contract TB if you spend an entire day cooped up in a small room with the same coughing, infected individual.

This is thought to be why an unexpectedly high proportion of young, healthy doctors and nurses are getting seriously ill from Covid-19. Statically, you'd expect almost all of them to get mild disease.