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The government’s guidance to combat the coronavirus has been supplemented by a new recommendation, namely frequent room ventilation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Thursday. Thus, the national strategy to fight the virus in Germany is now included in the acronym AHACL, which means distance, hygiene, masks, the alert application for coronavirus infections and the ventilation of interior spaces.
“Regular impact ventilation in all public and private rooms can significantly reduce the risk of infection,” the new government recommendations say.
Stosslüften or impact ventilation means that the wide windows are opened twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, for at least five minutes. An even more efficient option is Querlüften, that is, cross ventilation, which consists of opening all the windows in a single space, thus allowing complete ventilation.
In fact, in Germany people tend to ventilate their houses twice a day, even in winter, and ventilation is also a clause in rental contracts, to avoid the appearance of mold and the impression of bad smells in the apartments.
A true national obsession with clean air, the habit is also transposed to the level of sophisticated window technology, which can be opened in all directions.
German coronavirus expert Christian Drosten, head of the infectious diseases department at Charité Hospital in Berlin, has devoted ample space to ventilation in his podcasts on the COVID-19 pandemic, praising the benefits of purifying the air in a room. a special 10-page edition of scientific methods and explanations for ventilating spaces, and especially how it can be done in winter.
Martin Kriegel, an engineer and ventilation expert at the Technical University of Berlin, told Die Zeit that “there is clear evidence of a correlation between the quality of air in an office and the number of days of employee leave.”
Schools in Germany have long used this frequent ventilation practice, but in the context of the pandemic the question of more precise instructions has been raised. A recent meeting of German education ministers focused on how to effectively ventilate a classroom. Five experts in areas such as fluid mechanics, air hygiene and aerodynamics highlighted the importance of ventilating a room every 15 to 20 minutes for at least five minutes in spring and fall, and three minutes in winter.
On the other hand, many Germans complain at work and on the means of transport that they are freezing from the cold and that tensions could rise with the arrival of winter, especially if more Germans follow the government’s recommendations. A 34-year-old primary school teacher describes the environment in Germany in this regard: “A typical scenario is someone opening a window in an office or on the train for someone to jump in and complain about the current – another German obsession. . That is why most people wear scarves here. “
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