Thirty-nine scientists contributed to an article about indoor air quality in the May 2021 issue of Science. Their major concern is that indoor air quality is largely unregulated and the health and economic costs are seriously under-estimated as a result.
Take the ‘flu virus for example. Because airborne transmission is one of the ways that ‘flu spreads, improving ventilation might provide better protection against it. But until now, there’s been a reluctance to go further by measuring indoor air quality and establishing standards for ventilation. We are currently living with COVID which, the scientists argue, spreads rapidly in poorly ventilated spaces. It’s time to get serious about indoor air quality standards.
With housing and lockdowns being the primary defense against COVID, the scientists make a good point. There’s been a lot of evidence that COVID infection rates are inversely correlated with income. There’s also evidence showing that Black people, indigenous people and people of colour have higher rates of infection than White people.
Digging deeper, there’s evidence that the high infection rate is partly a function of housing conditions. For example, in order to be able to afford housing, people with low incomes double up. They are also more likely to have to leave their home to work, which increases the risk of exposure for everyone in the household. And, if someone in the household gets infected, it is harder to comply with the isolation procedures1.
There is another reason we should be paying attention to indoor air quality: climate change. Governments are putting together climate change plans. Most include housing, which make a significant contribution to the greenhouse gases that are warming the Earth’s atmosphere. Some of the strategies to reduce emissions (think airtight buildings and homes with small floor areas) seem align very well with the factors that make it easier for COVID to spread. The people planning the climate change measures need to put their heads together with the air quality scientists to figure out how to resolve this potential conflict.
The article in Science has several suggestions about ways to improve indoor circulation. It also requires a subscription. If you’re lucky enough to have one, you can access it here: A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection
Subscribers and non-subscribers can also check out this article on the same subject in Bloomberg Law: Indoor Air Pollution Remains a Deadly—and Unregulated—Problem
Footnotes
- Try these posts, which share research that gets at the consequences of crowding: Getting To The Roots Of The COVID-Poverty “Link” and Eviction Bans Help The Whole Community To Control COVID Infection
