COVID Travels Like Second Hand Smoke
HEPA Filters for Buildings
Lydall is One of the Companies who can Deal with the Small Aerosols
Heated Nickel Foam Filter is a Different Approach
U.C. Davis Study Shows Importance of Masks to Protect the Wearer
New York Schools will Open in September but Safety will be a Huge Challenge

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COVID Travels Like Second Hand Smoke

The daily Alerts have used the image of second hand smoke on multiple occasions to the travel of virus clouds. Others are using the same analogy.

Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist from Harvard University who was one of the first to blow the whistle on the pandemic potential of COVID-19, has a unique way of visualizing it. “A virus transmission is kind of like secondhand smoke — it’s secondhand breathing from someone else,” says Feigl-Ding. “There is no such thing as a smoke-free part of a restaurant. Given what we know about secondhand smoke, the smoke will go everywhere, therefore it hurts the waitresses and bartenders and people who work there who don’t want to smoke but they’re kind of stuck with the occupational hazard of it.”

Thus far, the evidence on whether the coronavirus is spread through microdroplets is still unclear. But Feigl-Ding — who is also a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists — says there is enough evidence of masks providing some protection against microdroplets to require them everywhere. Given the rising resistance to wearing masks and the public outbursts against them, he believes the U.S. should be ramping up its efforts to mandate masks — perhaps through creative measures.

“The  study signed endorsed by 213 experts highlights the importance of masks ... and it shows that masks are really effective, even cloth masks,” says Feigl-Ding. “People are protesting mask mandates, but we need them because people are not wearing them. I think we have to think through the policies — should the mask enforcement be like a civilian speeding ticket?”

Feigl-Ding worries that holding individuals responsible, however, may not be the smartest way, and suggests that perhaps businesses should be required to enforce mask mandates instead. “It’s like, don’t sell cigarettes or alcohol to underage minors, and if you do, then you’re going to lose your liquor license,” he says. “I think businesses might be more palatable.”

Also in favor of a mask mandate is Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University. “You know, if we all wore masks, we wouldn’t have to worry about airborne [transmission] either,” he says. “They prevent two things: the start of the airborne transmission — because they hold things in — and No. 2, they provide you some protection for the airborne transmission coming into you.”

Schaffner says masks should be a regular part of everyone’s routine. “If I had a magic wand, I’d have everybody in the United States wearing a mask today ... as long as you’re close to people,” he says. “Of course, if you’re far away from people, if you’re walking down the sidewalk and nobody else is around, or you’re out jogging and nobody else is around, then you don’t have to wear a mask. But if you’re interacting with people in any way, you should be wearing a mask.”

Like Feigl-Ding, Schaffner thinks mask mandates may be the only way to ensure that they’re worn. “I’ve come reluctantly to the notion that we have to oblige people,” says Schaffner. “We have to require them to wear a mask. Otherwise, a very substantial portion of the population either is unaware or doesn’t care.”

HEPA Filters for Buildings

When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last week that malls in New York could not reopen until they installed high-efficiency particulate air filters capable of trapping the virus that causes Covid-19, Harvard environmental health researcher Joseph Gardner Allen was thrilled.

"I've been writing consistently since early February about how healthy buildings should be the first line of defense against the novel coronavirus," said Allen, who directs the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

I'm really grateful that we have a leader in the country -- somewhere -- who was finally talking about healthy buildings, ventilation and filtration," Allen said. "That hasn't happened before. It just hasn't happened."

Allen was one of 239 scientists who wrote an open letter to the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies, asking for a change in their guidance to the public on how the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, can spread.

Current guidance only focuses on "hand washing, maintaining social distancing, and droplet precautions," according to the letter, published Monday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The health agencies are ignoring the tiny droplets of virus that sputter and spray from our mouths, become aerosolized and then float away into the air, the scientists said, as a likely means of transmission.

"They don't want to talk about airborne transmission because that is going to make people afraid," co-author Donald Milton, a professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland, told CNN in a prior interview.

"The best vaccine against fear is knowledge and empowering people to take care of themselves," Milton said. "Why wearing a mask is important is because it blocks the aerosols at their source, when it is easy to block them." 

Because the CDC and WHO "have been so slow to acknowledge aerosol transmission is happening, buildings are not putting in appropriate control measures," said Allen, who has focused his career on "sick buildings" and how they affect worker performance and productivity.

"The prudent and pragmatic approach is to acknowledge that airborne transmission is happening and put in the controls. If we find out in five years, that airborne was 5% of transmission, then OK," Allen said. "But what if it's 20% or 30% and we failed to acknowledge it? That's a problem." 

During a press briefing on Tuesday, WHO Technical Lead for Infection Prevention and Control, Dr. Benedetta Alleganzi, said the agency has discussed and collaborated with many of the scientists who signed the letter.

"We acknowledge that there is emerging evidence in this field," Alleganzi said. "Therefore we believe that we have to be open to this evidence and understand its implications regarding the modes of transmission and also regarding the precautions that need to be taken."

Alleganzi also emphasized that emerging evidence is not yet conclusive.

"The possibility of airborne transmission in public settings, especially in very specific conditions crowded, closed, poorly ventilated settings ... cannot be ruled out," she said. "However, the evidence needs to be gathered and interpreted."

Will masks protect against those microscopic floating droplets? Top-rated N95 and surgical-grade masks will, and scientists are scrambling to study and tweak the effectiveness of homemade masks.

Even when medical-grade masks are widespread, ventilation systems with highly effective filters are another key way to filter droplets from the air, Allen said.

In his edict to New York mall owners, Cuomo was talking about HEPA filters, which have the highest MERV ratings, between 17 and 20.

What's MERV? It stands for "minimum efficiency reporting value," and it's how filters are rated in their ability to trap tiny particles. The MERV ratings go from one to 20: Filters with higher MERV ratings are more effective than filters with lower ratings.

At the highest end, HEPA filters are used by hospitals to create sterile rooms for surgeries and to control infectious diseases, and are able to remove 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria and other airborne particles with a size as small as 0.3 microns. For comparison, Covid-19 is thought to be between 0.06 to 1.4 microns.

"Filters are rated at their worst performance, so 99.97% is the worst it will do," Allen said. "And that's rated for a particle size of 0.3 microns, but smaller and larger it actually does better. So the point is that it's capturing nearly all particles."

Unfortunately, most businesses and home owners may find it difficult to retrofit their existing system to accommodate a HEPA filter, or any filter higher than the rating recommended by the system's manufacturer.

Doing so can actually impair the system's performance: Smaller pores in HEPA air filters make it more difficult for it to push air. Using denser filters can affect the efficiency of the unit and strain the fan, while decreasing indoor air quality -- the opposite of what you desire.

"HEPA filtration is not always going to be feasible or practical," Allen said. "But there are other filters that can do the job. What is recommended now by the standard setting body for HVAC is a MERV 13 filter."

High-efficiency filters in the 13-to-16 MERV range are often used in hospitals, nursing homes, research labs and other places where filtration is important.

 

Lydall is One of the Companies who can Deal with the Small Aerosols

Lydall cites the lower efficiency of cloth masks. “For most cloth face masks, there is no inner filtration layer that traps harmful particles," said Sara Greenstein, president and CEO of Lydall, one of the companies who signed with the U.S. Department of Defense to produce filtration media for N95 masks.

"Although wearing a cloth face mask is better than nothing, it is no substitute for an N95 or surgical mask, which are precisely engineered, highly technical products," Greenstein said.

On June 24 Greenstein spoke with WFSB TV about why face masks are the “armor” that will allow us to reopen the economy safely, and what makes N95, surgical and medical masks so effective.

https://www.wfsb.com/interview-expert-weighs-in-on-proper-way-to-wear-face-covering/video_ac0ce11d-ae8f-5165-96b2-5fdd14224a44.html

 

McIlvaine is of the opinion that now is the time for companies such as Lydall to climb into the driver’s seats and relegate the epidemiologists  to a supportive role.

The switch from guidance by governments and researchers to guidance  by the supplier industry took place early in the evolution of the air pollution and cleanroom industries. To solve the power plant SO2 problem starting in 1965 Combustion Engineering allocated $25 million and partnered with Environeering (the company owned by the McIlvaine family) to develop the first commercial limestone FGD scrubber.  The first commercial version was supplied just three years later.

Some of the early cleanroom advances were achieved by NASA. But in the 1980s the semiconductor industry took charge and allocated the funds to create the ultraclean environments found in chip plants today.

Lydall is looking to filtration for increased sales and margins.

 

Growth areas include COVID related sectors along with high efficiency particulate capture.  However the two are tied together.  For example new filter media for waste to energy plants is potentially applicable to HVAC and even masks.

 

Lydall is well positioned to capitalize on the COVID market as shown by the articles in previous Alerts

1. McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Alert

... Carolina Implements Mask Regulations WHO Recommends Three Layer Masks Meltblown Media Prices Fall in China Lydall Makes Masks for First Responders Pure Living Provides Melt Blown Fabric Production Machines Lear Corporation ...

Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 76  -  11 Jun 2020  -  URL: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/coronavirus/subscriber/Alerts/2020-06-11/Alert_20200611.html

2. McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Alert

... Buildings to Reduce Virus Build Up Chinese Mask Production Line in Operation in Tbilisi Georgia Lydall to Invest in New Meltblown Line Tustar Teams with Neatrition to Introduce High Efficiency Masks ...

Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 60  -  3 Jun 2020  -  URL: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/coronavirus/subscriber/Alerts/2020-06-02/Alert_20200602.html

3. McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Alert

... Technology Solutions May 29, 2020 San Francisco Now Requires Masks in Any Public Place Lydall has Multiple COVID Initiatives Including Long Term Meltblown Contract with 3M Meltblown Price Still High ...

Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 21  -  30 May 2020  -  URL: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/coronavirus/subscriber/Alerts/2020-05-29/Alert_202005029.html

4. Coronavirus Alerts Table of Contents

... Carolina Implements Mask Regulations WHO Recommends Three Layer Masks Meltblown Media Prices Fall in China Lydall Makes Masks for First Responders Pure Living Provides Melt Blown Fabric Production Machines Lear Corporation ...

Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 19  -  8 Jul 2020  -  URL: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/coronavirus/subscriber/Alerts/TofC.html

5. McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Alert

... Two Million Schools Reopen with Partitions but What About Laminar Air Flow and filtration? Lydall has Multiple COVID Initiatives Including Long Term Meltblown Contract with Honeywell not 3M Honeywell has ...

Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 15  -  2 Jun 2020  -  URL: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/coronavirus/subscriber/Alerts/2020-06-01/Alert_20200601.html

6. McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Alert

... filtration industry and brief insights on the coronavirus challenge by Paul Marold, president of Lydall, and Val Hollingsworth, CEO of Hollingsworth & Vose. Bob Mcilvaine was also ...

Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 6  -  12 May 2020  -  URL: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/coronavirus/subscriber/Alerts/2020-05-06/Alert_20200506.html

7. McIlvaine Coronavirus Market Alert

... have production sites in China as well as on several continents around the world. Lydall reported that its Chinese facilities were up and running in the first quarter. So ...

Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 6  -  7 Jul 2020  -  URL: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/coronavirus/subscriber/Alerts/2020-07-07/Alert_20200707.html

Heated Nickel Foam Filter is a Different Approach

Researchers from the University of Houston, in collaboration with others, have designed a “catch and kill” air filter that can trap the virus responsible for COVID-19, killing it instantly.

Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH, collaborated with Monzer Hourani, CEO of Medistar, a Houston-based medical real estate development firm, and other researchers to design the filter, which is described in a paper published in Materials Today Physics.

The researchers reported that virus tests at the Galveston National Laboratory found 99.8% of the novel SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was killed in a single pass through a filter made from commercially available nickel foam heated to 200 degrees Centigrade, or about 392 degrees Fahrenheit. It also killed 99.9% of the anthrax spores in testing at the national lab, which is run by the University of Texas Medical Branch.

“This filter could be useful in airports and in airplanes, in office buildings, schools and cruise ships to stop the spread of COVID-19,” said Ren, MD Anderson Chair Professor of Physics at UH and co-corresponding author for the paper. “Its ability to help control the spread of the virus could be very useful for society.” Medistar executives are is also proposing a desk-top model, capable of purifying the air in an office worker’s immediate surroundings, he said.

 

The link below is only to the abstract.  We do not see how the filter can be heated without also heating the air. We did not see details on the capture mechanism other than heat. We will keep pursuing this.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/novel-air-filter-catches-and-kills-airborne-coronavirus-337116

 

U.C. Davis Study Shows Importance of Masks to Protect the Wearer

Health experts have stressed the importance of wearing a mask to limit the possibility of infecting others with COVID-19, but a range of new research now suggests they also protect the wearer, according to a report Monday.

With many states implementing policies to make face coverings mandatory in both indoor and outdoor spaces, one doctor says that masks also reduce the risk of infection to the wearer by 65 percent.

"We've learned more due to research and additional scientific evidence and now we know [that] not only wearing a mask prevents the person wearing the mask to transmit to others, but wearing the mask protects the person who's wearing it," said Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.

"So the wearer of the mask, even the standard rectangular surgical masks ... will decrease the risk of infection by the person wearing the mask by about 65 percent."

He added that N95 masks do an even better job at protecting people from the virus, but they are in short supply and are needed for healthcare professionals.

Blumberg and William Ristenpart, a professor of chemical engineering at UC Davis, appeared on UC Davis Live: Coronavirus Edition to discuss the topic of transmission. Ristenpart's lab at UC Davis has studied how people emit small droplets while breathing or talking that could carry the virus.

The pair highlighted two primary methods of transmission. The first being visible droplets a carrier expels, which are roughly one-third the size of a human hair. They said masks create an effective barrier against those types of droplets.

Everyone should wear a mask,” Blumberg said. “People who say, ‘I don’t believe masks work,’ are ignoring scientific evidence. It’s not a belief system. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t believe in gravity.’"

The second is via the aerosol particles we expel when we talk. They are about 1/100th the size of a human hair and are more difficult to defend against. He said that's because the smaller particles could still sneak through a gap in rectangular or homemade cloth masks.

Social distancing and staying outdoors, are helpful for staying clear of the small particles because there is more airflow, Blumberg and Ristenpart said.

“Studies in laboratory conditions now show the virus stays alive in aerosol form with a half-life on the scale of hours. It persists in the air,” Ristenpart added. “That’s why you want to be outdoors for any social situations if possible. The good airflow will disperse the virus. If you are indoors, think about opening the windows. You want as much fresh air as possible.”

He said that's why enclosed areas like bars -- seen as hotspots for contracting the virus -- are particularly dangerous: “The louder you speak, the more expiratory aerosols you put out."

So we don’t know who might spread it,” Blumberg said. “We do know social distancing reduces the risk of transmitting the virus by 90 percent, and wearing masks decreases the risk by 65 percent."

 

New York Schools will Open in September but Safety will be a Huge Challenge

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to reopen New York’s public schools in September, but students will almost certainly not return to classrooms five days a week, and they will probably have staggered schedules to fulfill social-distancing requirements.

That could mean that the city’s 1.1 million students physically attend school a few times a week, or one week out of every two or even three and continue their classes online the rest of the time. Math and English classes could be held in cafeterias or gyms, where there is room to spread out. Students may be asked to keep their distance from one another in once-boisterous hallways and schoolyards.

Mr. de Blasio is expected to announce more details in the coming days, as anxiety among parents grows and his administration confronts an array of challenges on the path to reopening the largest school district in the United States.

The city is planning for fall using current federal recommendations that students be kept six feet apart. Social distancing will vary significantly between schools.

An extremely overcrowded school in Queens, for example, could have three or more groups of students who cycle in and out of the building on alternating days or weeks, while students at a Bronx school with lower enrollment could be broken into two groups.

In either scenario, there would probably be no more than around a dozen people in a typical classroom at a time, including teachers, union leaders say, even if schools are able to convert libraries and other common spaces into classrooms. Many schools typically have class sizes of about 30 students.

Principals will probably let parents know next month which days or weeks children can expect to return to school.

The condition of the city’s schools is among the biggest hurdles. Many are over a century old, and overcrowding is a persistent challenge. Some schools hold classes in hallways. Others rely on classroom trailers for additional space.

Cafeterias, auditoriums and gyms in some buildings are poorly ventilated. To address that, custodians may have to replace air filtration systems and fix jammed windows over the next two months.  (McIlvaine comments that this is not a minor task and could be the most important)

No matter how creative educators are in rearranging classroom space, major questions remain about staffing levels. A school with space available for 30 classrooms but only 25 teachers, for example, would not be able to accommodate as many students as it might.

Principals are expected to receive their budgets for next year later this week, but it is clear that the entire system will operate with much less money because of the economic crisis created by the pandemic.

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teachers union, said he did not believe that schools could reopen in any capacity without federal aid. (The union’s members received their scheduled 2.5 percent raises in May.)

If the state and city did not get money to spend on staff, protective equipment and cleaning, Mr. Mulgrew said, “then that’s it, all bets are off, schools won’t open.”

He recommended that any Department of Education employee with a teaching certificate, even members of the central office staff, should prepare to teach in-person or remotely come September.

The city estimates that about one in five teachers will receive medical exemptions that allow them to work remotely this fall. Principals tend to be more experienced and therefore older, which could also keep some of them at home as well.

But it is clear that many parents, weary from nearly five months of home schooling, are extremely eager to have their children return to in-person learning.

The burden has been highest for essential workers who have scrambled to find child care while continuing to report to work during the pandemic. But the toll is enormous for all working parents, including schoolteachers.

“This is not sustainable,” especially for poor and single parents, said Julie Kashen, the director for women’s economic justice at the Century Foundation.