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 January 10, 2022 –
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mCloud Technologies Corp. announced a three-year agreement with Colliers Macaulay Nicolls Inc. to deploy mCloud’s AssetCare solution for HVAC and indoor air quality (IAQ) at Life Plaza in downtown Calgary. The initial subscription term for this agreement becomes effective at the completion of AssetCare installation and is set to renew in November 2025. 

“A key objective of our overall ESG efforts is to deliver high-quality, resource efficient and healthy buildings to our tenants,” says Brett Koroluk, VP of asset management, Slate. “Ensuring the wellbeing and safety of our buildings’ end users with high quality air is particularly important now, as many employees are returning to work. Integrating mCloud’s AI-based digital solution at the Life Plaza property not only protects our tenants, but also helps to provide overall cost savings on energy consumption and maintenance costs, creating value across the board.” 

This AssetCare solution represents mCloud’s largest IAQ deployment to date, providing clean air and energy efficiency improvements to an 18-floor office tower spanning 235,000 square feet across 35 cloud-connected zones. 

“Through AssetCare, tenants and occupants at Life Plaza will be able to breathe easy knowing they are in a connected building that defines the new industry benchmark for thermal comfort, air quality and sustainability,” says Patrick O’Neill, mCloud Technologies, President for connected buildings. “Our IAQ solution exceeds the standards and regulations set by health and building authorities around the world, positioning the Life Plaza building as one of the healthiest and most energy efficient properties in Calgary.” 

With AssetCare building tenants will benefit from safer indoor air throughout the entire building. A combination of IoT-enabled 24/7 air quality monitoring and AI-driven connected air purification will drive indoor air quality capable of outperforming standard HEPA filtration by continuously eliminating up to 95 percent of harmful particulates and contaminants smaller than one micron in size. Mobile-scannable QR badges present throughout the building will allow building occupants to get live readings of the indoor air quality in their surroundings at any time. 

In addition to improving indoor air quality, the AssetCare HVAC and IAQ solution employs AI to drive HVAC energy improvements of up to 25 percent, cost savings from optimized maintenance, and positive ESG outcomes from the elimination of building energy waste.

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Mainstream news media reported yesterday a “clash” between another medical practitioner and me on social media. “Clash” really overstates the situation.

‘Ignore this individual’, he tweeted. Really?

It was more of an old-fashioned insult. An attempt at humiliation or intimidation, perhaps? A metaphorical shoe thrown in my direction?

To say I had a lot worse thrown at me during two decades of advocating for marriage equality would be an understatement.

Life experience has taught me that in these types of situations, the best thing we can do is to concentrate on the substance of the issue.

There are some things that cannot be ignored though, at least not for long.

One is the scheduled return of children and teachers to classrooms in just a few weeks. This was the very topic of the video I posted a few days ago that created the ‘Ignore this individual’ response.

Lives are at risk. Parents are worried. Teachers are worried. We are in the middle of a COVID-19 pandemic which is yet to reach a peak of this current wave.

Many people who catch this virus do experience “mild” symptoms. However, we have been warned by the World Health Organisation not to treat Omicron as “mild”. Of course, the delta variant is still circulating, too. You don’t get to pick your variant.

Some people become severely unwell, some end up in intensive care and some die, unvaccinated and vaccinated. 

Tragically, we are seeing severe illness and some deaths amongst children here in Australia.

International experience warns us about the possibility of multisystem inflammatory syndrome and the concern that long COVID may affect as many as one in seven children.

The long-term implications of even mild COVID infection for a child, including long COVID, are still largely unknown.

One recent study found that a COVID infection substantially increased risk of diabetes in children under 18.

I have spoken to a number of doctors, parents and teachers about their concerns for their children’s safety and the logistics of sending children back to the classroom at the expected peak of a wave of combined Delta and Omicron COVID variants.

There are several reasons why delaying a return to classroom learning would be a wise move.

Classrooms are crowded and most are poorly ventilated. Those problems could be mitigated with CO2 monitoring, improved ventilation and air purifiers, but a return to school should be delayed until that work has been completed.

Primary school children are still unvaccinated and there have been supply issues with the vaccine, and that means most children will not have even had their first dose of vaccination before the start of term in just a few weeks.

GPs are trying to schedule older patients for boosters as well as make time in busy clinics to accommodate the demand for bookings for children to be vaccinated.

Some children had appointments, but the vaccines had not arrived by Friday of last week, so many parents found their children’s appointments were cancelled or delayed for several weeks.

Even if a child is vaccinated, they can still transmit the infection to teachers, to parents and grandparents or other caregivers.

Some of those adults could be medically vulnerable.

If children become sick, their caregivers have to stay home from work during their isolation period and we have already seen the economic impact of this.

If caregivers become sick, who looks after the sick children?

There will be logistical problems getting all teachers to have a third dose of COVID vaccine before the start of term.

We do not yet know how long the protection from the third dose will last, so we need to be planning for the “Vaccines Plus” model of reducing transmission including:

• having fitted N95 masks available to be worn by all teachers, staff and children at school;
• air quality improvements;
• increased ventilation;
• improved testing, contact tracing, isolation of cases and close contacts;
• a redefinition of “close contact” based on scientific evidence; and
• other measures.

With the high numbers of people in the NSW community with COVID and with those numbers expected to continue to rise, many teachers may have COVID or become close contacts and there will be a shortage of teachers able to work. I am told it is extremely difficult to get casual teachers.

Sending children back to the classroom at the peak of a pandemic makes absolutely no sense. We have seen what “letting it rip” has done to business, supermarket deliveries and other supply chains, vulnerable people in the community and the health system.

OzSAGE, the multidisciplinary group of independent experts on COVID, today called for the postponement of face-to-face schooling for primary and secondary students to enable double vaccination of children; to avoid the late January peak of the present wave (per NSW modelling) and to ensure indoor air standards are able to be met at all schools.

OzSAGE also recommended the inclusion of hybrid learning or alternative arrangements for vulnerable children requiring supervision and emotional support, as well as making sure that all children have access to appropriate I.T. provisions and support.

The starting point for any discussion about schools is the safety and wellbeing of children, teachers and other school staff and the families they all go home to. If that means a few weeks delay for a safer return to the classroom, then that is a reasonable precaution under the extraordinary circumstances we face.

Ignore this individual https://t.co/Rf3zmbL1S3

— Dr. Nick Coatsworth (@nick_coatsworth) January 8, 2022

Professor Kerryn Phelps AM is an IA columnist, general practitioner, advisory board member and conjoint professor at NICM Health Research Institute, a Climate 200 advisory panel member, a member of OzSAGE and a City of Sydney Councillor. You can follow her on Twitter @drkerrynphelps.

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After decades of toxic waste affecting local towns, Martinsville has received federal funds to begin the cleanup of Superfund sites in 2022.

Martinsville and 48 other Superfund sites received a $1 billion investment from President Joseph Biden’s $3.5 billion bipartisan infrastructure law.

“For more than 100 years, the upper Midwest was the nation’s industrial center. But when factories and mills closed, they left behind a legacy of toxic sites that are challenging to clean up,” Debra Shore, EPA regional administrator, in a news release.

The Pike and Mulberrry streets PCE plume site in Martinsville showed promise for a cleanup makeover due to its several sources of contamination such as chlorinated solvents and tetrachloroethylene (PCE), which can be airborne and found in dry cleaning products.

Long-term exposure can cause “ kidney damage, reduced red blood cells, and blood and immune system effects,” according to the New York State Health Department.

According to the EPA, Pike and Mulberry’s Master Wear, a dry cleaner and laundry of more than 30 years, contaminated Martinsville’s local drinking water wells serving more than 15,000 people.

The Martinsville site was first assessed in 2005, but the national priorities list was not proposed until 2012, finalizing in 2013. The remedial investigation, a study to collect data and determine the extent of the contamination, started in 2014 and was finalized in 2021.

Action is expected to take place between February and March. with no projected date to finish the cleanup.

The first 49 Superfund sites were selected because the work to clean them had already begun but due to lack of funds the cleanup work did not continue. This time, with the federal funding, EPA is ready to start the cleanup and finish it.

Previous efforts for Martinsville included the creation of a $1.5 million water treatment plant, where the water of three cities is filtered and then treated with chlorine, phosphate and fluoride. This has made the water safe for drinking and fulfills federal and state requirements.

According to the press release, the $1 billion will be used to focus on vapor contamination near the groundwater plumes, which is the area where it’s known that the water is contaminated with chemicals. Indoor air sampling will help determine locations to install vapor mitigation systems. The funding will also be used to install treatment systems to focus on vapor contaminations.

As of this year, there are 38 active Superfund sites throughout the state, according to EPA’s database. However, there are 1,322 Superfund sites nationwide.

A Superfund site is considered contaminated land left behind by abandoned mills and factories that have accumulated toxic waste over time, making it challenging to clean up. Programs such as Superfund redevelopment by the EPA work toward cleaning up listed Superfund sites.

Research has shown that Superfund sites are harmful to children and others due to toxic chemicals and can cause cancer, birth defect, disabilities and more, according to the Center of Health, Environment and Justice.

Carolina Puga Mendoza is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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Parents drop their children off at Lynn Valley Elementary School in North Vancouver on Sept. 9, 2021.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press

As COVID-19 case numbers in British Columbia and Alberta continue to smash records, some parents say they have never felt more anxious and frustrated during the pandemic than they do now, as they contemplate sending their children back to school on Monday.

“I am personally more concerned than I have been earlier in the pandemic,” said Gord Lau, chair of the Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council.

Unlike Ontario, Quebec and several other provinces, which chose to move students to online learning until at least Jan. 17, Alberta and B.C.’s governments decided to start in-person classes on Jan. 10, after extending winter break for a week so schools could develop contingency and safety plans aimed at reducing spread of the Omicron variant of the virus.

But many parents in Canada’s two westernmost provinces say schools are still not equipped for a safe reopening. They point to a lack of enhanced safety measures, low COVID-19 vaccination rates among children 5 to 11, and the fact that many teachers have not yet had vaccine booster shots. All of this, they say, means returning to classrooms will put children and families at risk.

B.C. to end classroom alert for COVID-19 exposures, monitor school attendance instead

Opening schools should be a priority, but Omicron requires extra safety: experts

“I am very frustrated. They essentially are telling all families that have health concerns and kids that have health concerns: We will do nothing for you,” said Vancouver parent Kyenta Martins, who decided not to let her children return to school this week because she has lung disease, which may make her especially vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19 infection.

She, like some other B.C. parents, is calling on the provincial government to provide online-learning options for at-risk families, and to allow children to stay home without losing their spots in schools.

Parents across the province have called for schools to be equipped with HEPA filters, which reduce the amount of potentially harmful particles in indoor air. Parents have also asked for students and staff members to have access to N95, KN95 or equivalent respirators, which experts say offer better protection than other types of face masks.

Alberta parents are making similar demands, according to Brandi Rai, president of the Alberta School Councils’ Association, which represents more than 1,350 school councils in the province.

B.C.’s Ministry of Education said in a statement that strict health and safety measures have helped reduce the spread of COVID-19 in schools since the beginning of the pandemic. Some of the measures that will be used in the province’s schools this week will be familiar, including mask wearing and physical distancing; reconfigured classrooms; and staggered start and stop times for recess, lunch and class transitions.

The statement pointed out 500,000 rapid COVID-19 tests have been set aside for medical health officers to deploy as needed in primary and secondary schools. Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry said Friday that availability of the tests in B.C. schools will expand when supplies increase in mid- to late January.

In Alberta, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange said an initial shipment of masks and test kits will arrive at all schools in the province no later than the end of this week.

Both Dr. Henry and Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, have said N95 masks are not required in schools. Ontario’s Education Ministry has promised to provide students and staff with N95s when in-person classes resume.

In Vancouver, reusable KN95 respirators were distributed to all students and staff at the beginning of the school year, the Vancouver School Board said in a statement.

Teri Mooring, president of the B.C. Teachers Federation, which represents 45,000 public-school educators across the province, said schools are preparing for shutdowns from understaffing, and teachers are frustrated that additional health and safety measures (the union has been demanding access to N95 masks for weeks) have not been implemented.

“We feel a little bit helpless right now,” said Elizabeth Byrne-Lo, who has worked as a teacher in the Vancouver area for 26 years.

Ms. Byrne-Lo decided keep her own two children at home this week.

“Until we get the HEPA filters and we get the MERV 13 [filters] and we get the N95, and we get the rapid testing program up – that’s what will make us all safe in schools,” she said.

“Right now, the plan is let it rip until we can’t any more.”

Ms. Mooring said about half of B.C.’s school districts don’t have MERV 13 filters – a less efficient grade of air filter than HEPA – in their ventilation systems.

She said another thing that has been worrying teachers is the low COVID-19 vaccination rate among children between 5 and 11. In the Vancouver Costal Health region, she said, 53 per cent of children have received their first doses. But in the Northern Health region, the rate is only 23 per cent. In Alberta, 38 per cent of children 5 to 11 have had their first shots.

On Friday, B.C. changed its school exposure notification system. Instead of receiving information about each new COVID-19 outbreak in their schools, families will only be notified of exposures if school attendance dips dramatically below what’s typical.

Kathy Marliss, co-founder of the B.C. School COVID Tracker, a volunteer-run website that collects information on COVID-19 cases in schools, said many parents are disappointed with the move.

“This information is another layer of protection that allows families to make their informed decisions to stay safe,” she said.

Ms. Marliss used to devote more than 12 hours a day to compiling information for the tracker. Now, she said, she anticipates the amount of time she and other parents spend on the volunteer effort will rise exponentially.

We have a weekly Western Canada newsletter written by our B.C. and Alberta bureau chiefs, providing a comprehensive package of the news you need to know about the region and its place in the issues facing Canada. Sign up today.

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MARYLAND – As legislators prepare to return to the general assembly, environmental activists are hoping lawmakers will keep their priorities in mind. Many of the bills discussed this weekend have been in the works for over a year. Legislators discussed plastic packaging, stormwater programs, and even an electric school bus pilot program, all of which are aimed at improving community health. Now lawmakers say they’re eager to bring their environmental concerns to Annapolis.

Over the weekend, legislators, environmental advocacy groups, and members of the public sat down virtually to discuss some of their goals for 2022. “The fewer fossil fuels we burn, the better it is for everybody and that’s what we’re trying to get to,” says Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo.

One of those bills is the environmental human rights amendment which some legislators say will help create the most durable legal protection for the environment. “States are really stepping up to the call to make sure our citizens are protected in our constitutions in this way and Maryland should be the next state to do the same,” says Del. Wanika Fisher.

Other pieces of legislation focus on low-income housing, energy performance, and public utilities. Which we’re told set a standard for all housing developments. “It streamlines and creates a one-stop-shop for federal money, state money, not only for efficiency but for safe indoor air quality issues, safety issues, health issues,” says Del. Lorig Charkoudian.

Lawmakers also looked at a framework for farm to food security, farmland sustainability, and increasing funding supporting those efforts. Plus, they say they want to make Universities and colleges more sustainable, and shift plastic fees from consumers to the corporations using the plastic. “And the stick is that, if you don’t do this, you don’t get to sell import, or distribute the product in Maryland, you use to access to our markets,” says Del. Brooke Lierman.

Legislators say, protecting the environment doesn’t just impact those who can vote, but everyone who lives in Maryland. “They, re the ones whose lives are going to be impacted by whether we have an environment that’s worthy of passing down to our children and grandchildren,” says Rosa Hance Chair ship of Maryland Chapter of Sierra Club Executive Committee.

Other bills touched on technology to support environmental efforts like de-carbonization and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Some legislation also tackles carbon neutrality and a sustainability general education requirement.

Legislators are urging constituents to reach out to them with any concerns or bills you want them to take a look at this year.

The next Maryland General Assembly session starts on January 12th.

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The air inside the buildings where we live, work, shop, and play is a complex mixture of particles, microbes, and chemicals. These components, which join the gases commonly present in air, enter from the outside and are released by furnishings and activities. Studying the health effects of these substances and their interactions presents a host of challenges (see sidebar).

Accordingly, a committee established by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) invited experts to a public information gathering session on April 5. The committee, co-sponsored by NIEHS, will continue to meet in closed sessions throughout the year.

Furnishings, personal care products, cooking, heating, and hobbies are some of the sources of chemicals commonly detected in indoor air. (Photo courtesy of Francesco Scatena / Shutterstock.com)

Data on indoor air scarce, complex

Air pollution is a major contributor to premature mortality, William Nazaroff, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, reminded the attendees. Yet even though most Americans spend the bulk of their time indoors, most available data concerns outdoor air.

Bennett’s study detected 257 compounds in the house dust samples they screened. Of them, 135 had not previously been detected in indoor studies. (Photo courtesy of Deborah Bennett)

Time indoors has been intensified since the COVID-19 outbreak. “The pandemic helped us get here,” said William Bahnfleth, Ph.D., from Pennsylvania State University. “This is the moment [for us] to say what is needed.”

One approach to determining what is needed is the study of house dust, because many compounds accumulate in dust. Substances as diverse as plasticizers, fungicides, pharmaceuticals, food additives, cosmetic ingredients, and human metabolites were detected in samples from just 38 homes in Northern California, in a study shared by Deborah Bennett, Ph.D., from UC Davis.

Frank Wania, Ph.D., from the University of Toronto, described the sources and processes that generate these compounds.

• Deliberately released, such as air fresheners, perfumes, disinfectants.
• Inadvertently released from products, furnishings, building materials.
• Inadvertently released during human activities like cleaning, cooking, smoking.
• Imported from outside.
• Produced when other compounds react.

Connection to health disparities

Home environments make important contributions to observed health disparities, according to Gary Adamkiewicz, Ph.D., from Harvard University. Citing a paper he published in 2011, Adamkiewicz considered factors that influence residential air quality:

Adamkiewicz stressed the importance of taking a multilevel view of indoor air, from household to building to neighborhood. (Photo courtesy of Gary Adamkiewicz)

• Physical structure — size, age, single homes versus multifamily homes, heating systems, ventilation.
• Setting of the structure — traffic, nearby industry, residential activity such as lawn care, contaminated soil.
• Behavior — cooking practices, smoking, use of consumer and personal care products.
• Sources — furnishings, pesticides, water sources, cleaning products, air fresheners.

He advised looking at subgroups — such as elderly people, urban residents versus rural residents, public housing tenants, and environmental justice communities — to better understand how these factors influence disparities. “We need a mechanistic, systems view of exposure disparities,” he said, noting that such an approach helps target activities or conditions that can be changed.

Diverse challenges

“Marketing has obscured what we know scientifically,” said Nazaroff, using air purifiers as an example. “Scientifically, there’s no pure air [because] air is a mixture,” he pointed out. “So nothing can satisfy that name. But practically, adding chemicals to indoor air to improve air quality is almost universally a bad idea.” Instead, he advised treating contaminants.

The committee, led by David Dorman, D.V.M., Ph.D., from North Carolina State University, will grapple with this and other challenges over the coming year. Next year, NASEM will produce a report that describes:

1. Key implications of the research, including near-term opportunities for incorporating what is known into practice.
2. Where additional chemistry research is most critical for understanding indoor air and adverse exposures.

Nazaroff described four principles of keeping indoor air healthy. (Image courtesy of NIEHS)

Citations:
Adamkiewicz G, Zota AR, Fabian MP, Chahine T, Julien R, Spengler JD, Levy JI. 2011. Moving environmental justice indoors: understanding structural influences on residential exposure patterns in low-income communities. Am J Public Health 101(Suppl 1):S238−245.

Shin HM, Moschet C, Young TM, Bennett DH. 2020. Measured concentrations of consumer product chemicals in California house dust: implications for sources, exposure, and toxicity potential. Indoor Air. 30(1):60–75.

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If a waiter at a restaurant brought you a murky, stinky glass of water, that would be unacceptable. But yet, many waiters — at least before the Covid-19 pandemic hit — were forced to breathe poorly ventilated air in restaurants and other indoor spaces where people packed together.

And still today, “if anybody asks a restaurant owner, ‘what’s the ventilation here?’ they will probably look strangely at them,” says Lidia Morawska, a physicist and an aerosol expert at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia who has advised the World Health Organization on the spread of airborne pathogens.

In the post-pandemic world, Morawska wants all of us to ask the question — “what’s the ventilation like in here?” — more often. And not just of restaurant owners, but of the managers of the crowded indoor spaces we visit. We should expect to breathe in clean, virus-free air just like we should expect to get clean water in a glass. And it’s not just up to individuals to demand better air quality — governments and engineering associations need to set new standards to ensure clean air for all.

The pandemic has made clear we can be infected with respiratory viruses more easily in poorly ventilated spaces, where the virus people are breathing out of their nose and mouth can linger in the air longer. Ventilation works by either replacing stale, potentially infectious air with fresh clean outdoor, or passing that stale air through a filter.

Earlier in the pandemic, Morawska led a group of air quality experts who asked the WHO to recognize that the coronavirus can spread in aerosols across long distances (as opposed to just occurring in close contact situations of 6 feet or less). Eventually, the WHO and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognized this more explicitly in their scientific guidance.

But when the pandemic is over, we’ll still need better ventilation to prevent future outbreaks of respiratory diseases including coronaviruses, but also the cold and flu.

Last week, Morawska and a few dozen other air quality experts put out a manifesto of sorts in Science, calling for “a paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection.”

“Governments have for decades promulgated a large amount of legislation and invested heavily in food safety, sanitation, and drinking water for public health purposes,” Morawska and her co-authors write. “By contrast, airborne pathogens and respiratory infections, whether seasonal influenza or Covid-19, are addressed fairly weakly, if at all, in terms of regulations, standards, and building design and operation, pertaining to the air we breathe.”

Recently, I spoke with Morawska about what the public needs to know about indoor air and how we can use carbon dioxide monitors to quickly determine ventilation quality in a space. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Brian Resnick

You and your co-authors write there needs to be a “paradigm shift” in how we think about ventilation in infection prevention. What’s the shift?

Lidia Morawska

We compare the shift in thinking, and action, in relation to clean water. There was no clean water [standard] before a 19th-century movement started. People accepted that water could be contaminated, or they could get sick drinking water.

So there was a paradigm shift. This is the same thinking: We don’t have to accept that we get sick due to respiratory [viruses that spread easily in poorly ventilated indoor air]. We should do something about it.

Brian Resnick

So we now have a centralized system for cleaning water and taking pathogens out of it: treatment plants, distribution. For air, there’s no centralized system for distributing it in a community the way there is for clean water. Is this problem a lot harder than water quality?

Lidia Morawska

It is harder, but it’s not unresolvable.

With water, the point is if water was contaminated, and then you get sick quickly after [drinking it], the whole neighborhood would make a big fuss about it. But you don’t know if the air in the building is contaminated or not. If you come down with a cold or flu three, four days later, you don’t know whether you contracted it in the building.

Brian Resnick

So how could we do better in making sure air in indoor spaces isn’t contaminated?

Lidia Morawska

We don’t really need to come up with some new technologies. We just need to use them. The simplest (though perhaps over-simplistic) would be a display of CO2 concentration. [Either via handheld CO2 monitors or CO2 monitors mounted in a public, visible space.]

Brian Resnick

And CO2 concentration would tell you that there’s a lot of people breathing in this room and what they’re exhaling isn’t being cleared out very quickly?

Lidia Morawska

That’s right.

There are standards for CO2 concentrations, though in many buildings no one checks. But if it was mandated [to display CO2 concentrations in an indoor space] individuals could see the ventilation is bad.

Brian Resnick

I would imagine there would have to be a lot of education to do there. I don’t have an intuitive sense of what a high CO2 concentration is. And it might be confusing, because CO2 is a few steps removed from the thing you actually want to know which is: Is this air contaminated?

Lidia Morawska

This technology has been used in Europe particularly in Germany for at least 10 years if not longer, in schools. It’s not just a CO2 meter, it also has this traffic light system: green, yellow, and red. The students and the teachers don’t have to look at what the concentration is, they see the color.

Brian Resnick

And if you saw red, you’d open a window or something.

Lidia Morawska

Yeah, you’d know there is a problem. But in places where there are no windows, either you leave, or go to the manager, boss, or whoever and say “there’s something wrong here.”

[Right now,] if anybody asks a restaurant owner, “what’s the ventilation here?” they will probably look strangely at them. So this question needs to be asked at all levels and in particular with the government.

Brian Resnick

If we address air quality, we would have fewer sick days?

Lidia Morawska

If there’s a lower probability of infections, there will be fewer infections. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t [work].

Brian Resnick

On the most basic level, what should be the standard for ventilation in indoor spaces when it comes to preventing infections?

Lidia Morawska

The most important thing is the purpose of the standard. If you read the purpose of the ASHRAE standards [The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, which writes standards for building ventilation systems], the purpose doesn’t include infection prevention. So the most important one is simply, include infection prevention in the purpose of the standard.

There are already existing standards and ventilation guidelines, but none of them take into consideration infection transmission. So this has to be added.

Brian Resnick

Does any country currently recognize this in their indoor air quality standards?

Lidia Morawska

Working with a very large group of colleagues from around the world, no one has ever said that ‘in our country, buildings are designed to take care of this.’ We can confidently say this is not taken into account anywhere.

Brian Resnick

So how do the standards change?

Lidia Morawska

One way is to be prescriptive: saying each space requires this many [air] exchanges [exchanges meaning completely replacing the air in the room with fresh air], or this many liters per person per second. And there are already some recommendations or ideas about this.

But there are also tools for risk assessment that consider the specifics of the environment in terms of the number of people and in terms of the activities conducted there. This is important, because when we are sitting and quietly breathing in a library, we exhale significantly less than if we are talking or singing.

There won’t be one specific value for a gym because gyms vary in terms of size and number of people.

Brian Resnick

It will cost money to implement this.

Lidia Morawska

It will cost money in an initial investment, but as we try to assess the cost, this would be incomparably small to the cost of infection.

Brian Resnick

Would there be downsides to these higher standards? I understand that if you’re bringing in more outside air to a building to ventilate it, you need to use more energy to heat or cool that air. Is there some acknowledgment that increasing ventilation and addressing these problems might also lead to more energy use?

Lidia Morawska

If we were just taking the fresh air, outdoor air — that has to be treated to be cooled down or heated up depending on the climate. This will significantly increase energy consumption. But sometimes there are hybrid systems that use natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation.

The [already heated or cooled] air can still be recirculated. It has to be properly filtered to remove the contaminants [i.e. viruses] so effectively we’re bringing back to the room the same air, but you are cleaning it.

Brian Resnick

Would it be a shame if we don’t use the pandemic as an instigator to make some of these changes?

Lidia Morawska

It would be more than a shame, I’d say it would be a tragedy. We don’t know how many lives could have been saved if there were proper ventilation systems in the buildings now.

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The pandemic has emphasized the importance of an indoor air environment that supports healthy, happy, productive occupants.

The quality of the air we breathe in a building has always been of the utmost importance. That’s because, on average, we spend 90 percent of our time indoors. Given that percentage, our efforts toward indoor air hygiene have not always been as intense as they should be, especially in high occupancy buildings such as offices and school classrooms. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of hygienic air and the direct effects poor air quality has on the health and cognition of office workers and students. Additionally, poor air quality has been shown to incur colossal costs – some $10 billion a year – in terms of lost office productivity. How we manage indoor air going forward is key to creating spaces that will have a positive impact on human health, comfort, and productivity levels, at the same time ensuring those within can go about their activities safely. In short, we must go beyond indoor air quality, and strive to achieve indoor air hygiene.

The highest air quality standards should be the clear goal to facility managers. Historically, the focus has been on minimum acceptable standards for human occupancy to minimize energy costs, but in the light of the pandemic, this has been turned on its head, and rightly so. The primary goal should always be set on creating optimal conditions to maximize health, cognition, and productivity, with energy use a monitored secondary concern. Energy use is of course important, but the savings made in this area cannot offset the losses sustained through lost productivity. In any case, human health has to take priority if we are to reopen and stay open in the long term. This new priority requires us to extend our monitoring from how well our HVAC system is running to tracking air quality where the people are inside the building.

Most assessments of indoor air quality performance are a moment in time snapshot of current conditions, rather than an ongoing evaluation. They typically provide a review of the structure, the current HVAC system and its performance abilities, filters used, outdoor air ventilation, the use of air purifiers, and so on. Such an assessment is extremely valuable, but it fails to address two critical factors – how is the system actually run (vs. what it can do) and the reality that indoor air quality is not constant but varies throughout the day based on multiple factors. An assessment approach may tick a box on a given day, but to maintain a high air quality standard on an ongoing basis requires active and real-time monitoring of the air quality and an understanding of the key parameters of air quality and what levels to manage against, i.e. achieving air hygiene standards. This means that the quality of the air is not simply assessed and assumed.  Rather, it is measured, monitored, and above all, it is managed. To do so, here are five best practices of good indoor air hygiene.

1 and 2. The heat AND the humidity

To achieve optimal indoor air hygiene there are five core parameters that must be factored into the air hygiene equation, the first two of which are widely known but not fully understood. They are temperature and humidity. Most of us think of temperature and humidity as comfort measures, although as individuals what comfortable means will vary. 

A relative range of temperature comfort is 72°F plus/minus 3 to 4 degrees. Outside those ranges productivity can be impacted when we start to feel uncomfortably cold or hot. Temperature does not become a significant health concern until temperatures go below 40⁰F or above 100°F, which would be rare indoors unless the air management system has failed. 

Humidity is a measurement of the amount of water in the air, and generally we will not “feel” it when it is in the 40 to 60 percent level. However, high levels of humidity create conditions that favor growth and spread of microbes such as mold. It is vital to include humidity within air hygiene assessments because of the impacts of these microbes and mold to our health. 

3. Carbon dioxide – productivity killer

Have you ever felt sluggish sitting in a meeting room and refreshed after walking outdoors? It’s not a boring meeting, it’s the high levels of CO2 that build up in congested spaces. CO2 levels are impacted by occupancy rate, congestion, and the air management systems’ ability to bring in fresh outside air to replace the inside air. In general, as CO2 levels increase inside a building, cognition, productivity, learning, and test scores go down. Therefore it is recommended that indoor air CO2 should match outside air CO2 levels, or be close to it, as long as it is 600ppm or less.

One particular study, spearheaded by Joseph G. Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program and an Associate Professor at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, took 24 participants who spent six full workdays in an environmentally controlled office space. The study’s method outlined that the participants be blinded to test conditions and on different days the participants be exposed to indoor environmental quality conditions representative of either conventional or green office buildings in the United States: Conventional had high concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and Green had low concentrations of VOCs. Additional conditions simulated a Green building with a higher outdoor air ventilation rate (labelled Green+) and artificially elevated carbon dioxide levels independent of ventilation.

The results were eye-opening: “Office workers had significantly improved cognitive function scores when working in Green and Green+ environments compared with scores obtained when working in a Conventional environment. Exposure to CO2 and VOCs at levels found in conventional office buildings was associated with lower cognitive scores than those associated with levels of these compounds found in a Green building. Using low-emitting materials, which is common practice in Green buildings, reduces in-office VOC exposures. Increasing the supply of outdoor air lowers exposures to not only CO2 and VOCs but also to other indoor contaminants.”

4. Why so volatile?

Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are gas phase pollutants in the air. Some VOCs are benign (like the terpenes you smell when peeling citrus fruits) and some can impact your health (such as formaldehyde). VOCs cannot be captured by filtration because gasses simply pass through filters. VOCs need to be exhausted outside, diluted with fresh air, or captured using gas phase adsorption media (such as carbon). 

VOCs often accumulate indoors from what we refer to as off-gassing. VOCs can emanate out of everything from indoor furnishings to building materials. Other sources are cooking and evaporation out of chemicals such as nail polish, paint, cleaning agents, etc. If we take building materials as an example, some can emit VOC gasses such as formaldehyde and benzene for many years after their installation, and when you consider the Environmental Protection Agency’s opinion that concentrations of VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to 10 times higher), it is clear why VOC-level is another important parameter to manage for optimal indoor air hygiene.

 

As with temperature and humidity, the senses come into play with many VOCs, in that you can smell them and so have an awareness of them at some concentration. However, because human perceptions vary, actual VOC levels are vital to measure, monitor, and manage in order to successfully mitigate their detrimental effects to occupants.

5. Particulates matter

Perhaps the most hidden of our five core parameters is Particulate Matter (PM), especially particulate under 2.5 microns in size (PM2.5). PM2.5 is usually considered the benchmark particle size to measure for clean, healthy air. This is because PM2.5 particles can penetrate deep into our lungs, creating serious health consequences. MERV 13 (or better) and preferably HEPA filters do an excellent job of removing PM from the air, and it is key to consider that filter rating and air circulation rate through the filter are ways to effectively manage PM2.5. Circulation rate is critical and often overlooked as most systems are only “on” while cooling or heating the air, as opposed to delivering a constant flow through the filters.

There have been several studies conducted on the effects of PM2.5, one of which was done by researchers including Professor Barbara Maher, from Lancaster University in the UK. Published in Neuroscience News. The study examined the brainstems of 186 Mexico City residents, young children or young adults, who were constantly exposed to air pollution. The results revealed markers of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and motor neuron disease, suggesting that air pollution poses a serious risk of neurological damage from an early age.

This is of course just one example, but it is a sobering reminder that to overlook air hygiene can have very serious health implications for people of all ages. Today, with regard to the current pandemic, and indeed the likelihood of pandemics in the future, the spotlight has turned to the importance of indoor air hygiene. We have our chance now to ensure it is treated seriously.

The message then, is that given the incredible amount of time we spend inside in today’s world, it would be negligent to ignore the quality of the air we breathe in those spaces. Measuring, monitoring, and managing indoor air is the only effective way to mitigate the risks of uncontrolled air quality. And only by approaching this with a serious eye toward indoor air hygiene will we enable safe, long-term return to business and educational spaces that have been empty for too long.

Todd DeMonte is chief innovation officer at the Indoor Air Hygiene Institute. 

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