Indoor Air Quality and preventing COVID-19 spreading via the airborne route in buildings

We love what we do and specialise in improving the Indoor Air Quality of commercial buildings and have a solid track record of delivering Indoor Air Quality testing, audits and the development of IAQ improvement plans.

A person can survive three weeks without food, three to five days without water, and only a few minutes without air. Even though each of us breathes almost 11,500 litres of air every day, it is often treated as less important than other resources. Yet ambient air pollution can trigger many illnesses and significantly shorten the life span of individuals, even in the absence of a fatal disease – BreezoMeter: One, two, three, breathe.

Clean air is a basic requirement of life. The quality of air inside homes, offices, schools, day care centres, public buildings, health care facilities or other private and public buildings where people spend a large part of their life is an essential determinant of a healthy life and people’s well-being – World Health Organisation (WHO): Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality.

Indoor air quality is to a large extent dependent on outdoor air pollution, and in addition, the indoor environment contains many additional sources of air pollutants from building materials, consumer products, occupants, and their activities. Occupants are therefore exposed to a mixture of a wide range of pollutants – CIBSE TM40 Health and wellbeing in building services.

We are in week 4 of an extended COVID-19 lockdown, and its overwhelming and downright scary to see the death rates spiralling upward, the significant impact the lockdown is having on businesses, individuals, our freedom and everything else that constituted our ‘normal’ that we have taken for granted.

I recently received the following quote - If we go back to the way things were, we will have lost the lesson, so may we rise and do better!

The more I reflect on this the more it resonates with me!

Amongst all this doom and gloom, there is some hope shining through, as we gain a new level of appreciation and respect for our NHS staff and all other frontline/key workers, and a realisation of whom the real hero’s in society are.

It is also clear that the planet is healing itself, as pollution levels are at its lowest in decades and wildlife are returning in abundance. People are looking out for one another more now than ever before and as the lockdown continues, there is a greater focus on mental health, indoor health & wellbeing and a lot of us are realising that we can work from home and still stay connected, engaged and productive.

By the time the lockdown is eased and eventually lifted, our personal safety will take preference, and I think that people would be wary if not scared of groups and having others in their personal space. We will be very conscious of the various ways, real or perceived, that COVID-19 and other diseases spread, and as we have all been through a very traumatic experience, we will have to sensitively deal with the effects of COVID-19 on many levels.

In addition, people are going to question the need for offices and going into the office more than ever before, which is a debate worth having and would require people centred leadership to actively engage employees and develop a win-win model to accommodate employee needs and business goals through agile working.

The lockdown is predicted to be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, which further aggravates matters.

Looking ahead, and taking all the above into consideration, I personally cannot see that we will ever get back to business as usual once the dust settles and we get to the other side of this pandemic!

My views are better explained using Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs/motivation, which states that our basic needs i.e. physiological and safety needs need to be fully satisfied before we can move onto the next stage of fulfilment, our psychological needs.

Once a person's physiological needs are relatively satisfied, their safety needs take precedence and dominate behaviour.

Safety and security needs are about keeping us safe from harm. This includes personal security, emotional security, financial security, health and well-being and safety needs against accidents/illness and their adverse impacts.

If a person does not feel safe in an environment, they will seek to find safety before they attempt to meet any higher level of survival.

I believe that COVID-19 has rocked most if not all our safety and security needs, so let us learn the lessons, rise to the challenge and collectively do better!

Building occupants are going to demand much more from their indoor working environments, including cleaning, disinfecting, sanitation, and indoor air/environmental quality.

Operating and maintaining buildings to avoid health risks and fostering wellbeing has never been more important, and I predict that it will become the new normal.

As the economic downturn bites, companies are going to look for ways to cut costs, and from experience the facilities and maintenance budgets are some of the first areas to be targeted.

This is going to create very challenging times, as building occupants are going to be demanding healthier and safer indoor working environments, whilst the FM and maintenance budgets could potentially be reduced.

Every challenge provides an opportunity, and I strongly believe that we can do more with less, but this will require visionary leadership and a critical rethink and reset of business as usual, and adopting optimised and outcome-based maintenance strategies focussed on the indoor environment.

Time based planned maintenance (PM) has not provided much if any value to the indoor environment of buildings, as it is focussed on the building systems i.e. conduct checks at pre-determined intervals.

Outcome based planned preventative maintenance (PPM) is primarily focussed on maintaining the required indoor environment parameters and dictates the maintenance requirements of building systems i.e. conduct checks, record, and adjust at pre-determined intervals.

You would observe that at face value the actions look very similar, but the key difference is that PM is activity based whereas PPM is outcome based.

To put it differently, PM is knowing what to do and at what frequencies whilst PPM is knowing why you are doing it so that you can fix/adjust it before it fails and/or goes out of parameter!

A few weeks ago I created a post with some key measures to help control the airborne route of COVID-19 in buildings, and ensure good Indoor Air Quality, which I have included below.

In addition to deep cleaning and sanitising office environments and schools etc. to contain the spread of Coronavirus which includes air disinfecting, hard surface cleaning and sanitizing common points of hand contact surfaces, don't forget the central ventilation and air conditioning systems. It is highly recommended to set all Air Handling Units (AHU) with a recirculation capability to full fresh air i.e. no mixing of the return air with the outside/fresh air being supplied. On AHU's that have a recirculation capability, disinfect all cooling and heating coils. If disinfecting the coils and filters of the internal air conditioning terminal units and/or Fan Coil Units (FCU) are not part of the routine maintenance regime, then it is also highly recommended that these be disinfected too.

Since then, numerous very useful guidance documents have been published by BESA, REHVA, CIBSE, ASHRAE and WELL etc. A group of Nordic scientists have gathered together under auspices of SCANVAC to call for recognition of airborne transmission of COVID-19 and the implementation of adequate measures to prevent it, as this route has been documented for the outbreak of SARS, influenza, measles, etc. Its likelihood has been underpinned by the newest research of aerosol scientists and by modelling, but not fully acknowledged for the spread of COVID-19. Ignoring this route of transmission would be irresponsible because several practical solutions for reducing the spread may be overlooked, among others, the role of ventilation.

Before we look at a summary of the most practical low/no cost measures that could be implemented immediately, lets first look at what good Indoor Air Quality is.

Good Indoor Air Quality may be defined as air with no known contaminants at harmful concentrations. Common contaminants or pollutants include gaseous pollutants, such as carbon dioxide (produced by occupants and from combustion appliances), volatile organic compounds (released by carpet glues and other materials), odours and particulates.

Good Indoor Air Quality is essential to ensure the health and comfort of occupants.

Ventilation is an essential component for the provision of good IAQ and thermal comfort.