How to keep coronavirus in two indoors

As the autumn cold brings people back to their homes, classrooms, and .faces, the coronavirus can re-emerge in states that have yet to control its spread.

Why The virus poses greater risks than crowded indoor spaces. The southern states, for example, saw an increase in infections when temperatures rose this summer, prompting people to stay indoors with air conditioners humming.

“I’m going to see that shift in the northern latitudes as soon as the weather cools down,” said Lance Murray, president of Blacksburg Virginia Tech, which studies how the airborne virus moves through the air.

In poorly ventilated indoor settings, like most rest restaurants and bars, the virus can linger in the air for long periods of time and travel distances of more than six feet. Mer and other researchers said.

This summer, scientists have isolated live viruses from small droplets called aerosols floating in the air up to 16 feet from an infected patient in a hospital.

Unless you live with an infected person – unless the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives specific guidelines to follow – you don’t need to take particularly extraordinary steps to protect yourself at home, Dr. Marre said.

And when you venture out elsewhere, covering your face and washing your hands is the best way to protect yourself indoors.

But fears of the risk of indoor transmission have fueled the market for expensive appliances that clean surfaces – and even air – from viruses. But most of these products are overly agile and can inadvertently have harmful consequences, experts warn.

“Anything that seems fictional and tried and not true – it’s all a matter of avoidance,” said Delphin Farm, an atmospheric chemist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. “Soap and water work beautifully.”

We asked the experts what strategies people should adopt, and what to avoid with weather cooling.

It’s not just about ventilation.

Some school districts have focused on virus-proofing their ventilation systems, and the CDC has developed a complete set of recommendations for businesses to keep employees from becoming infected with the virus.

But, “the talk of risk reduction is beyond ventilation,” Harvard T.H. Said Joseph Allen, a safety construction expert at Chan School Public Health. “It’s a layered defense approach where a single strategy alone is not enough, but collectively they can reduce the risk.”

Dr. Allen suggests these measures for the management of large buildings:

• Eliminate exposure when possible – for example, by encouraging staff to work from home;

• Permission to enter only those who need to be physically present in the building;

• Add strategies such as adding air filters and disinfecting surfaces;

• Manage the flow of people passing through the building – for example, the number of people in an elevator at a time;

• Proper indoor use requires face covering and other personal protective equipment.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have determined how many people can safely gather in a space and for how long an app has been created.

But regardless of these precautions, the best strategy is to just wear a mask indoors, “said Martin Bazant, a chemical engineer at MIT.” It has a much bigger impact than any other strategy. “

Easy solutions to try now.

Here’s a simple and free one: If possible, open your windows, “especially in the shoulder season when conditions are milder,” Dr. Said Ellen.

Schools need to have adequate ventilation to fully exchange air in the room every 20 minutes, but most rarely manage to do so once every hour. “Even just opening six-inch windows can dramatically change air exchange rates,” said Dr. Said Ellen.

The trick is also useful for car travel. Just breaking a small window can help spread any coronavirus that is inhaled by other riders.

Oscillating fans can be useful or harmful indoors, depending on how they are used. Ideally, they should not be placed in any place where they can inhale the virus-filled breath from an infected person around the room or on the face of another physician.

An oscillating fan placed in the window and away from people can increase the airflow in the room without these hazards.

If you are in a building with a mechanical ventilator, adjusting the damper settings can increase the amount of air circulating in the fresh air. Of course, this may not be desirable if the air is heavier than the smoke and soot outside, as is often the case in large cities and, more recently, on the west coast.

If the air is polluted, or if there are no windows to open, air filters – even portable – may be the answer. They can get rid of coronavirus air.

“There was no building that we couldn’t turn into a healthy building,” said Dr. Ellen, based on her years of experience with the disease outbreak in school and office fee buildings. “There’s always something you can do.”

Basic air filters are always the best.

Hepa, Mervi, HVAC: Conversations about the air system can turn into a soup of abbreviated alphabets. Relax and take a deep breath: Even the most striped-down devices can help bring down the microbial burden in the air.

For a classroom or office fee, a portable air cleaner tailored to the size of the room “is a low-cost plug-and-play strategy to give you some air conversion in a clean air hour,” said Dr. Said Ellen. These are compact devices that can be plugged into any outlet; Effective models are available for less than $ 200.

Some people mistakenly think that the average air filter, portable or part of a larger system, is no match for a microscopic virus. But, “the virus is not naked in the air,” said Dr. Mar Mere. “It comes out of the respiratory drops.”

Even if a drop of water evaporates all the water, the size of the salt and protein droplets traveling with the virus remains half a micron or more. It is big enough to hold the air filter.

“We don’t have to worry about filtering anything as small as a virus,” he said. Murray said.

Ashagra, a professional society setting standards for such devices, recommends MERV13 or higher quality air filters to filter coronavirus. Not all ventilation systems can handle MERV13 filters, says Dr. But most can handle at least MERV11, which can hold up to 60 percent of viral drops, Murray said.

HPA Filters are also generally considered excellent, although some experts say research on the extent of their effectiveness is limited.

It’s called “air cleaners.” Be careful.

The best way to clean the air in a room is to replace it with air from outside or run it through an air filter.

But some air filters offer features that experts call “imongi” – useless at best, and dangerous at worst. So-called foreign cleaners are not regulated by any federal agency, but they are aggressively sold in schools and businesses, says environmental chemist Dr. Said Farmer.

“Side effects are very likely to cause harm,” he said.

Some devices produce ozone – yes, that ozone, a respiratory hazard – while others produce dangerous hydroxyl radicals that injure cells. There are products that claim to rely on “bipolar ionization” to break down coronaviruses, but they can also produce ultrafine particles that are dangerous when inhaled.

Working with coronaviruses requires rare high-security laboratories, so most of these marketing claims are based on research with other viruses. Those studies were largely funded by manufacturers, and they are not examined by independent experts or by regulatory agencies.

Some businesses, including dentist’s office fees, are smoking their premises with bleach or hydrogen peroxide. But chemical sprays that “clean” the air will have to be so concentrated that they will poison people as well, experts warn.

So what products can you trust? Expert advice: Avoid it all.

“We don’t need this eccentricity,” said Brent Stephens, an indoor air quality expert at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. “I found an air cleaner here that we use, and it has a weird little ultraviolet light on it. But I don’t really believe it. I turn it off and use it as a way to move air through the filter. “

Ultraviolet lights are a step up.

Experts were most concerned about UV light, which is used in many hospitals to disinfect instruments, gear and even all rooms. But now UV light is sold as an indoor disinfectant in industries, schools and residential homes.

Unlike portable air filters which are inexpensive and can only be plugged into an electrical outlet, UV lights for disinfection need to be engineered by carefully trained individuals. Improperly installed, it can burn the skin and damage the light in the eyes, said Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist at the University of Tuscan Ari Rizo Hospital.

UV lights are mostly controlled for use as disinfectants and are not well studied for use around people, he added: “I get really nervous when people are pushing for UV disinfection.”

UV light usually does not penetrate deep into the surface and will not destroy viruses that are buried under other microscopic detritus.

U.V. Killing a coronavirus for light takes time, and experts warn against using UV devices unless you are willing to spend time and money buying models that can be installed by a skilled professional.

“It’s one of the handful of scientifically recognized companies used in hospitals, but it’s very expensive,” said Dr. Pop Popescu. “The average school or office fee doesn’t need them.”

The virus thrives in dry air, so some companies are also selling heavy-duty humidifiers for HVAC systems to make the indoor space uninhabitable with coronaviruses.

Unless the humidifier can retain space between 40 percent and 60 percent humidity – which will require replacement of most building systems – experts said.

On the other hand, the kind of simple humidifier that people use at home can keep your nasal passages moist enough to reduce some risk on an individual level.

Dr. “They’ve just been flooded with shiny new solutions,” Ellen said. Said Ellen. “And the reality is that it’s time for the basics.”