Coronavirus Technology Solutions

September 30, 2020

IQ Air NanoMx and HyperHEPA Pleat Filters

Media Starting to Understand that only Efficient Masks are Effective

Heating and Humidity to Decontaminate Masks

New York  Closes School Due to Two Cases of the Virus

Italy Reduces Case Load with Testing of Youngsters

Evidence Continues to Show that We Need Efficient Masks

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IQ Air NanoMx and HyperHEPA Pleat Filters

NanoMax filters reduce fine and ultrafine particles by up to 95%, including viruses, bacteria, allergens, and harmful traffic pollutants. NanoMax filters eliminate the need for costly upgrades to a building’s HVAC system typically associated with HEPA filters. NanoMax filters require no prefilters, fit into standard 2” filter slots, and have pressure drops fully compatible with standard HVAC systems.

NanoMax filters exceed MERV 16 requirements per ASHRAE 52.2 standards, designed to capture up to 95% of even the smallest and deadliest airborne particles: PM2.5 (< 2.5 microns) and ultrafine particles (< 0.1 microns), which can get into your bloodstream and cause systemic health effects, including dust, mold, viruses, bacteria, allergens, and harmful traffic pollutants.

Advanced HyperHEPA pleat design allowed IQAir designers to build in 60 square feet of surface area – five times more than the surface area of a conventional pleated air filter. The result is increased airflow and better filter loading, which widens replacement intervals and reduces costs.

Media Starting to Understand that only Efficient Masks are Effective

Here are excerpts from a recent article showing that only efficient masks are effective against COVID.

New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and other states are requiring everyone to wear a mask or a substitute face covering to leave home. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suddenly flipped from urging the public not to wear masks to recommending that they wear something that covers their nose and mouth.

New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio's new signature look is a western-style bandana pulled up over his mouth and nose. No doubt he's well-intentioned. But that kind of face-covering is only a hair better than no covering at all. Science shows it's a mere 2% to 3% effective. It's misleading.

From Day One of the coronavirus outbreak, the public has gotten the run around about masks. Government officials need to be honest about what works and what doesn't. Here's the scientific evidence:

N95 masks, which are molded and fit tight to the face, filter out 95% of viral particles, even the smallest ones. These masks offer the best protection, but they are in short supply, and public officials want them reserved for health care workers on the front lines.

Surgical masks, the kind you see commonly worn in hospitals and dentists' offices, are flat and held to the face with elastic. They're made from a nonwoven material, polypropylene, that is a somewhat effective filter. They protect the wearer from about 56% of viral droplets emitted by an infected person nearby, according to research in the British Medical Journal.

Not so woven cloth masks. They allow in 97% of viral particles. That means almost no protection for the wearer.

Wearing a homemade cotton mask is a false assurance, explains epidemiologist May Chu. She says it will block only about 2% of airflow. Similarly, a study in Disaster Medical and Public Health Preparedness concludes that a homemade mask should be considered "only as a last resort," better than no protection at all but not a lot better.

Surgical masks seem available in stores now, and if you can buy a supply, using them is far preferable to make your own. Don't reuse the mask and avoid touching the outside of the mask, because it's likely contaminated after use.

If you have to resort to homemade barriers, keep in mind that the more layers of cloth, the better the protection. Four layers likely block out 13% of viral droplets, compared with the 2% blocked with a single layer, according to a study in Aerosol and Air Quality Research.

Why are public officials suddenly urging mask use, many weeks after the coronavirus struck? Because of mounting research pointing to the huge role of asymptomatic people spreading the disease before they feel ill. Whenever these asymptomatic carriers talk or simply exhale, they spread very small droplets of virus-laden saliva and respiratory mucous in the air. Scientists call it bioaerosols.

Getting everyone to mask up does double duty -- helping to protect the uninfected and keeping the unknowingly infected from spreading the virus. As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, announcing the mask mandate: "You don't have a right to infect me."

That makes sense, but Americans have had to put up with a lot of message confusion from the outset, and now they're getting misleading advice about homemade masks.

What's the root problem? Year after year after year, through three presidencies, federal health bureaucrats ignored warnings about inadequate supplies of masks and other equipment in the event of a pandemic. Ten federal reports sounded the alarm, even as the nation witnessed SARS, MERS, avian flu and swine flu that circled the globe. In 2009, during the swine flu outbreak, the federal Strategic National Stockpile dispersed 85 million N95 masks, as well as other protective masks. The masks were never replaced.

Don't blame any president, Democratic or Republican, for this oversight. The career officials at Health and Human Services knowingly allowed the nation to be undersupplied. They never requested enough money to adequately stock the Strategic National Stockpile. Their agenda was global, tracking down polio in Pakistan, pouring nearly $5 billion in the fight against Ebola overseas and funding a Global Health Security Agenda serving 49 countries. But no masks for Americans.

When the coronavirus struck, the CDC offered only mask double talk. The agency said, on the one hand, masks are vital to protect health care workers, and on the other hand, masks won't make the public safer. It defies common sense. The agency should have leveled with people, admitting supplies had to be saved for front line caregivers.

The coronavirus could return next winter. Or another viral pandemic could strike from any part of the globe. The bill Congress enacted in late March allocates $16 billion to the Strategic National Stockpile, nearly 30 times its annual budget. Next time, the U.S. will have enough masks.

Heating and Humidity to Decontaminate Masks

Scientists out of Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University and the University of Texas Medical Branch have now found a technique, which could allow the masks to get disinfected and make it safer for reuse.

According to researchers, something simple as 'heating' the mask could relatively disinfect the virus and help recycle them for further use.

The strategy, which researchers feel which definitely help healthcare workers at a time like this could lessen the shortage problem and not contribute to the pandemic pollution as well.

“You can imagine each doctor or nurse having their own personal collection of up to a dozen masks. The ability to decontaminate these for reuse would ease the shortage.

While there are no studies yet to confirm the reaction of the novel coronavirus in contact with high temperatures, scientists based out of Stanford University devised a novel way of combining heat and humidity to decontaminate and inactivate the viruses at large.

Conducting the experiment in a safe environment, scientists mimicked real-life situations by mixing up SARS-COV-2 strains in liquids like the fluids which come out of our mouth while a person coughs, sneezes or breathes.

The droplet solution was then made to air dry on a special meltblown polypropylene fibres fabric, which is also used in the making of N95 masks and then heated at different temperature settings, for 30 minutes.

It was observed that the environment with high humidity and heat was able to reduce the virus load on the fabric. However, extreme heat reduced the mask's sensitivity to filter out germs and viruses.

The best temperature, for 'cooking' and rooting out the viruses turned out to be 85-degree Celsius, with 100% relative humidity. Scientists were able to observe zero trace of the COVID causing virus after sample masks were treated under the given environment.

Additionally, it was also observed that the method would decontaminate the mask and make it suitable for use up to 20 times, which could potentially help save resources.

Further, the virus killing technology could also be useful to on other types of PPE.

New York Closes School Due to Two Cases of the Virus

A city school has been closed for two weeks due to the coronavirus – the first extended shuttering this year, officials revealed Thursday.

The John F. Kennedy Jr. school in Elmhurst is the first city school to trigger a 14-day quarantine protocol after it confirmed two unrelated coronavirus cases among staffers.

Prior to the start of the academic year, the Department of Education said it would take the action when two or more COVID-19 infections arise at the same school with no links between infected students or staffers.

Administrators at the special needs high school sent out a letter alerting parents and students of the closure this week.

“We hope to return to the building on Wednesday, October 13,” the message read.

Administrators said anyone who eventually tests positive won’t return until they are no longer infectious and that close contacts will be instructed to quarantine.

The closure will impact 262 kids at the school who are enrolled in a blended learning model. All students will now learn remotely until the doors reopen.

Mayor Bill de Blasio stressed Thursday that the John F. Kennedy Jr. is the only one of the city’s 1,600 schools to require a two-week closure thus far.

The two cases were identified by City Hall’s new “Situation Room” that monitors school infections.

“That’s the only one the entire time that has experienced that,” de Blasio said during his daily press briefing. “And what’s going to happen, I think, in a case like this is what we’ve been telling people along those two weeks, kids, of course, will get instruction remotely, then the school will be a backup to everyone who was quarantine will come right back,”

According to the DOE, 160 schools have reported isolated coronavirus cases. In those scenarios, schools are only required to close for 24 hours before being allowed to reopen.

“We won’t hesitate to take quick action for the health and safety of our school communities, and that’s exactly what we did when two positive cases amongst staff members were identified at John F. Kennedy High School,” said DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer.

The department said that an investigation at the school confirmed two cases among staff members within a 7 day period.


Italy Reduces Case Load with Testing of Youngsters

Through the window of the car in front, there's a short, sharp cry from the toddler - eased with a quick lollipop or a colorful picture: a distraction aid once the swab is finished. And then the next in a long line of vehicles pulls up as Rome's "Baby drive-in" continues apace.

The test serves children from newborn to the age of six. A result comes within 30 minutes. If it's negative, they can return to day-care or school, even if there's a positive case in their class.

It's the latest innovative initiative by the country that was the first in Europe to be overwhelmed by coronavirus but which is for now managing to keep the virus in check more successfully than many others.

Italy's cumulative number of Covid cases over the past two weeks is currently just over 37 per 100,000 people, among the lowest rates in Europe. The UK is at over 100, France exceeds 230 and Spain has around 330.

"February and March were very hard," says Elisabetta Cortis, one of the pediatricians who founded the drive-through project. "And then we suffered a lot because with the lockdown, we had many problems for the kids. They stayed alone - no friends, no school, no sport, nothing."

It is actually difficult to pinpoint exactly why Italy is somewhat bucking the trend of European countries experiencing an alarming spike in cases.

Its testing rate is not exceptionally high - the UK is carrying out over three times the tests of Italy - but the swabs are widely available and rapid testing is now in place at some airports, train stations and schools, so there is no sign of the problems in accessing tests that have been seen in the UK and elsewhere.

The most likely explanation is a combination of factors: efficient test and tracing, a longer lockdown - Italy was the world's first country to shut down nationwide and among the slowest to reopen - and the fact that the trauma of the early weeks of the pandemic frightened Italians into widespread compliance with rules.

At Tonarello, a pasta restaurant in the Roman district of Trastevere, several measures are in place, including plexiglass screens between tables, the recording of customers' details for contact tracing and disposable paper menus. Some other restaurants and cafes use digital QR codes for menu access on smart phones.

Italy was one of the slowest countries to reopen schools - and that only now is the hot summer beginning to break, the cold weather bringing with it the increased risk of contagion.

So it is possible that Italy, ahead of the rest of Europe when Covid arrived, is behind the curve as its neighbors struggle with a spike.

But for now the figures look promising. And that simple formula - tests, rules, compliance - will, this country hopes, halt a second wave and ease the legacy of pain from the first.
 

Evidence Continues to Show that We Need Efficient Masks

There is a battle over the importance of mask efficiency which was reported this week in Scientific American. In one corner, we have scientists, epidemiologists, infectious-disease physicians, clinicians, engineers—many different experts in the medical community, that is—arguing that the spread of COVID-19 by aerosols (that is, tiny droplets that can remain airborne long enough to travel significantly farther than the six-foot separation we’ve been told to observe) is both real and dangerous. In the other, it’s the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), which until very recently have allowed only that aerosol spread is possible, not necessarily likely.

Droplets are relatively large. Aerosols, on the other hand, are tiny by comparison, nearly 10,000 times smaller than a human hair. They’re spread at far greater distances—20 to 30 feet—and can linger in the air for minutes to hours, infecting others. What constitutes a safe distance from aerosols is much harder to define, especially in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation. Choosing a safe mask becomes difficult as well: an N95 respirator, for example, would be preferable to an ill-fitting cloth mask when it comes to filtering out these minuscule viral aerosols. For these and other reasons, some in the medical community suspect, our health agencies have been reluctant to accept the data on the airborne transmission of COVID-19—because if they do, they’re acknowledging a problem far more challenging even than what we’ve been dealt with so far.

This reluctance has prompted an epic response. In a nearly unprecedented move, 239 scientists from 32 countries wrote an open letter to the WHO in July, urging the agency to recognize that airborne transmission of coronavirus by smaller aerosol particles is possible. The organization’s response was to subsequently update its position, stating that aerosol transmission “cannot be ruled out.” A glowing endorsement this was not. The CDC, meanwhile, posted on its Web site over the weekend that aerosolization may be “the main way the virus spreads,” then backtracked and removed the content from its site, claiming the language had been a draft of some proposed changes which were “posted in error.”

This is a major point, not a minor one. Aerosol carry of the virus means that any indoor area where people gather in numbers—think restaurants, bars, churches, schools, rallies—is potentially a spreader of the disease, and depending upon the numbers, a superspreader. These are likely places with poor ventilation, where people not only are close together but may be speaking loudly, shouting, singing, cheering or booing, etc.

The idea of aerosol spread is neither new nor controversial. Several diseases, including measles, chickenpox and tuberculosis, have been shown to be transmitted by aerosols. Patients sick with the flu have the virus in their exhaled breath, and that virus has been shown to be present in

the air. This is true for some other viruses, including those found in infants.

Scientists in Wuhan, China, have identified coronavirus RNA particles in the air in hospital areas, although they haven’t yet proven that the particles are infectious. Lab workers at the University of Nebraska have published their finding that they, too, have identified coronavirus RNA in the air.

“We have pretty strong circumstantial evidence, in a number of these superspreading indoor incidents, that there must have been a significant component of aerosol or airborne transmission,” says William Bahnfleth, chair of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Epidemic Task Force. Bahnfleth noted several examples, including a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, where multiple people without direct contact with one another became infected from a single individual, and a choir practice in Washington state where presumed droplet and aerosol spread from singing sickened 53 people, two of whom died.

In an e-mail interview, researcher Bjorn Birnir shared his work, published in a preprint (a non–peer reviewed paper), that demonstrated how an infected person continues to exhale a cloud of droplets and aerosols. These “build up over time to dangerous concentrations for everyone in the room,” Birnir says. While we don’t know exactly how much virus is needed to infect people or at what concentrations, these examples show that at some point the threshold is met and inhaled aerosols are the likely culprits.

“Aerosol transmission plays a significant role in indoor environments and cannot be neglected,” says environmental science expert Maosheng Yao, a professor of engineering at Peking University. “Sooner or later, [the WHO] is going to recognize this officially.”

Much of the solution to the challenge of aerosol (and droplet) transmission in indoor areas is ventilation. “If people use recirculated air during a pandemic, it is going to be dangerous, because you will just circulate the virus around,” Yao says. The goal of ventilation, instead, is to exhaust air from inside a building—along with whatever contaminants it contains—and replace it with clean air from the outside.

High efficiency air filtration and disinfection are important. Filters should be upgraded to the extent possible in HVAC systems without diminishing airflow. The ASHRAE paper recommends MERV-13 filters or the highest level allowable, which filter very small infectious particles. And if HVAC units cannot use higher-grade filters, consider using portable air cleaners with HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filters to disinfect the air further.

A word about ultraviolet light. “A coronavirus is a coronavirus,” says Bahnfleth, and prior studies found that ultraviolet light inactivated other coronaviruses, like SARS-CoV-1 and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome). UV fixtures can be mounted on the ceiling or walls or placed inside ventilation ducts to neutralize viruses and bacteria. The biggest limitation is that the irradiation can be a health hazard, to both skin and eye, which is why the fixtures are placed up high, away from people.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/protecting-against-covids-aerosol-threat/