Many routine clinical laboratory procedures can potentially generate aerosols and droplets that are often undetectable. The following list of examples are laboratory procedures that have been associated with the generation of infectious aerosols and droplets:
- Centrifugation
- Pipetting
- Vortexing
- Mixing
- Shaking
- Sonicating
- Removing caps (non-blood and blood tubes)
- Decanting liquids
- Preparing smears
- Flaming slides
- Aliquoting and loading specimens
- Loading syringes
- Manipulating needles, syringes or sharps
- Aspirating and transferring blood and body fluids
- Subculturing blood culture bottles
- Spilling specimens, and cleaning up spills
