Thought of the Day - December 2 2021 - Air Filters

I saw an article in Nature magazine sometime back, concerning sweeping SARS-CoV-2 from the air using portable air filters.

Citing a study by doctors in a working UK hospital who conclude "Inexpensive, portable air filters can efficiently remove coronavirus particles and other pathogens from the air. Vilas Navapurkar, an intensive-care unit physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, UK, and a co-author of the study, said filters might be more important to use in general wards than in ICUs. An inexpensive type of portable filter efficiently screened SARS-CoV-2 and other disease-causing organisms from hospital air."

“This study suggests that HEPA air cleaners, which remain little-used in Canadian hospitals, are a cheap and easy way to reduce risk from airborne pathogens,” says David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Although a single SARS-CoV-2 virus is far too small to be trapped by a standard HEPA filter, the fact is most bind to the surface of water droplets, dust particles and the other airborne pollutants they encounter and thus will be filtered out.

Similar conclusions, from the beginning of the year, by the Mayo clinic said that mounting evidence suggests coronavirus is airborne, but they also noted that "health advice has not caught up".

But guess what? Our government has finally caught up ( Thought of the Day - November 26 2021 - Do They Really Think We Are Stupid? ). So now you can consider air filters as an important part of overall COVID prevention.

Health Canada says on their site says:

At home: Using ventilation and filtration to reduce the risk of aerosol transmission of COVID-19.

Improving indoor air quality is particularly important at this time because Canadians are spending more of their time at home and indoors. The recommendations below will help to . . . reduce the risk of aerosol transmission of COVID-19 by reducing the number of viruses suspended in the air.

But this page was last updated in September and so it still says To date, there is no direct evidence that portable HEPA air cleaners are effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in closed spaces. I anticipate, by popular demand, this will be amended in the not too distant future.

Happy filtering.

Cheers

Cliff