Q&A: ‘Paradigm shift’ needed to improve building ventilation
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In a recent paper published in Science, researchers argued for a “paradigm shift” in how policymakers and building engineers approach indoor air quality and health in order to reduce the spread of respiratory infections.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how unprepared the world was to respond to it, despite the knowledge gained from past pandemics,” Lidia Morawska, PhD, MSc, director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, and colleagues wrote.
“A paradigm shift is needed on the scale that occurred when Chadwick’s Sanitary Report in 1842 led the British government to encourage cities to organize clean water supplies and centralized sewage systems,” they wrote. “In the 21st century, we need to establish the foundations to ensure that the air in our buildings is clean with a substantially reduced pathogen count, contributing to the building occupants’ health, just as we expect for the water coming out of our taps.”
Healio spoke with Morawska about the path forward.
Healio: What kind of financial investment would be needed to make buildings safer from respiratory viruses?
Morawska: As we explain in the paper, there is no exact value available neither for the whole world, nor for individual countries. Because there was no realization that this is a risk that can and should be controlled, no proper economic analyses were conducted. However, because the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is already more than $1 trillion, and because the annual costs of respiratory infections in just the United States alone are of the order of tens of billions of dollars, any investment in building would be a small fraction of this. Estimates suggest that the cost of the investments would be on the order of a 1% increase of the new building costs.
Healio: Who will write the recommendations they say should be written?
Morawska: Expert groups encompassing all relevant areas of science and engineering.
Healio: What would the recommendations address?
Morawska: How to design buildings, how to equip them in adequate engineering controls, how all the requirements should be linked including low energy consumption.
Healio: What buildings should be prioritized?
Morawska: The well-being of all humans is important, which means all buildings.
Healio: Could the COVID-19 pandemic have been different had these issues been addressed on the level that governments have addressed food and water safety?
Morawska: Tens of millions of cases worldwide would have been prevented, as well as hundreds of thousands of deaths.
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