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Study: Air purifier use at daycare centres cut kids' sick days by a third (2023)
- unglaublich 2y agoYes, please. My colleagues, who are parents, are constantly sick whenever their children are at daycare, and I have no interest in the constant coughing and/or getting sick myself.
- BenoitP 2y agoOn child #2, can confirm. We actually planned for it. By planning for no activities. Just bunkering and resting for 2 months straight. We began partial daycare on Thursdays + Fridays in winter. Daycare is like Cancun for bacteria. Dry cold can weaken the skin, and cold is good for bacterial protein stability. The cycle begins: kid starts incubating on Thursday. On Saturday he's sick, and you hope for a good lottery. Diarrhea? Puking? Maybe not. But a runny nose most probably. These may ruin your nights, still. Sunday they are sick, and you begin to feel unwell. Monday the kids is recovering, but you're still in it. By Wednesday you should be good though. And then it's Thursday again. On another topic air filtering is great for the kids I'm sure; but I can't help wonder if it's just kicking the can down the road.
- wredue 2y agoThere’s some studies showing parents of kids in daycare are sick upwards of 90% of the time. I don’t know if it was that much, but when my kids were in daycare, it was definitely A LOT for sure. Work doesn’t provide nearly enough sick time for that period of being a parent. So what are parents to do if they’re not able to work from home?
- tuna74 2y agoI totally felt that! My kids almost never got sick in daycare (1-2 days per year), but especially the first year I felt like I had a cold most of the time. But it improved later years.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agoAn unpopular opinion: one of the parents is a full time care giver.
- MikeRichardson 2y agoI was a kid in daycare a lot. Also, my mom (sole caregiver, besides daycare) was a registered nurse and at the time specialized in staff (i.e, direct patient care) nursing. No way was she sick 90% of the time, or even 10% of the time, despite the numerous alleged opportunities for infection ("daycare", staff nursing, etc).
- eleveriven 2y agoAnd reducing the productivity loss associated with parental responsibilities could benefit everybody!
- eleveriven 2y agoSchools and daycares are often places where illnesses spread quickly
- switch007 2y agoGood news. Hopefully a country as wealthy as Finland can just roll this out countrywide without much thought, if not already standard
- readthenotes1 2y agoWithout much thought? Without much thought I would say that the recent experience of preventing children from catching communicable diseases have shown it to be a devil's bargain and we would be wise to keep their immune systems constantly exercised
- switch007 2y agoWithout much thought regarding cost. Calm down lol
- unsupp0rted 2y agoWhat evidence is there that it’s possible to “exercise” an immune system?
- hirsin 2y agoWhat recent experience? Do you mean keeping them home from school for covid? I don't think the knock on effects from that are remotely traceable to their immune systems.
- error_logic 2y agoAs mentioned elsewhere in the thread, one can be exposed (and have an immune response) to a viral load below what's normally considered symptomatic. Then the immune system learns, but doesn't have to go into over-drive which taxes the rest of the body more destructively. In other words: Filtering part of it from the air can make exposure more like vaccination than full blown infection, which is great.
- terminatornet 2y agoGetting sick to stay healthy. Makes sense to me. Now will you be exposing yourself to zika virus or HIV? Seems like those would exercise your immune system quite a bit.
- swagasaurus-rex 2y agoThere was a great deal of interest in how to remove airborne viruses during Covid. One of the biggest takeaways seemed to be that UV light destroys viruses in seconds. Seems like there a lot of things we could do
- plasticchris 2y agoYeah, even a single UV bulb in the cold air return might be effective. This is well known in hiking circles where UV is used to sanitize water. I might hook one up now that I have the idea.
- morkalork 2y agoYou can use UV to sanitize water to drink? Must be better tasting than those gross iodine tablets!
- amluto 2y agoYou can! It works best if the water isn’t cloudy. You can also get chlorine dioxide tablet systems that are less nasty tasting.
- mauvehaus 2y agoYou can, but it does not leave any residual ability for the water to neutralize pathogens once you're done treating the water. If you dip a Nalgene bottle to fill it, then purify the contents, you would typically then bleed the threads by holding the bottle upside down and loosening the cap. With chemical treatment, the iodine in the water works to neutralize any pathogens that aren't flushed out of the threads. If you've used UV, you're kind of hoping that the flushing action has physically washed out anything lingering in the threads. Anecdotally, people using UV get more cases of waterborne illness, but I don't know if anyone has rigorously studied this. Hikers are naturally resistant to controlled experiments. If you don't like the flavor of iodine tablets, I recommend AquaMira instead. Source: AT ME-MA 2003, GA-ME 2010. UV was pretty popular by 2010 and for a couple years after. Not planning a thru hike at the moment, but I believe the Sawyer squeeze filter is super popular now.
- taeric 2y agoSo from 10-13 down to 7-9? Nice. Will be neat to see if the kids were still carriers, but managed to keep the viral loads down such that they weren't "sick" during that time. I recall a study a few years back that said kids at that age were basically always sick, just not often symptomatic.
- funnym0nk3y 2y agoHowever I think it is important for children to get sick. Humans need pathogens to train their immune system.
- AwaAwa 2y agoWhile I personally agree with this sentiment, the last few years have made it amply clear that the population prefers padded rooms to icky playground sandlots.
- error_logic 2y agoNuance: They're still getting exposed and thus gaining immunity with the environmental filtering, just not so much viral load as to be out of school [as often]. It's a win-win from that perspective and dismissing that serves no one in the end.
- Sakos 2y agoThis tiny but significant factor is also why masks, even surgical masks, are so helpful. They don't need to prevent 100% transmission, just reduce the viral load received or passed on.
- WithinReason 2y agoHow often and how sick? The more the better?
- appplication 2y agoIt’s a good question. Obviously infinite sick is not desirable. If it were possible to induce antibodies via e.g. broad spectrum vaccinations would we see less sick kids in total? After all the merits are supposedly eventual conferred immunity, not physically being ill. No reason to think you need to be sick to benefit.
- candiddevmike 2y agoThe hygiene hypothesis is tenuous at best and dangerous (especially for immunocompromised peers!) at worst: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/is-the-hygiene-hypothesis-true https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/is-the-hygiene-hypothesis-...
- LinuxBender 2y agoAnecdotally can vouch for air purifiers. I bought an old earth bermed home. I suspected radon may be an issue. Purchased 2 AirThings and they were off the government charts so to confirm Radon Daughters were being produced I bought more air purifiers and an Alpha Geiger Counter. I can hold it 2 inches from any of my filters and the alarm sounds. 640 CPM alpha radiation. That changed my project priorities. The filters only bought me some time as the air away from the filters is the same level of radiation as outdoor background noise but obviously the source is still emitting gas. I will probably just bulldoze this place.
- ComputerGuru 2y agoRadon mitigation systems work. And they’re cheap.
- LinuxBender 2y agoYou're right but it won't help in my case. I created an ad-hoc system that does the same thing but the source is not at ground level. Through some form of convection I suspect around the chimney the gas is being pushed into the attic and then coming down in rooms they did not join the wall to the ceiling correctly. Most of the radioactive dust is being produced in the attic which nobody has touched for 60+ years. If I put the geiger counter in the attic it goes nuts. I'm just going to level this place and build something correctly.
- ComputerGuru 2y agoThat sounds wild. I don’t know where you are but in the USA you could reach out to a university extension program/office and ask them to look into it. It’s bizarre enough to catch their interest and come at no cost to you. Edit: it really is bizarre because Radon is primarily produced by reactions underground/in the earth and has a relatively short half life (3.5 days). I don’t see how it could be atmospherically sourced without it being a hazard to the whole community, regardless of the bizarre convection currents that bring it into your house. It’s unlikely to be produced in your attic. If I were you, I’d want to know more and understand how this is all happening lest you raze and rebuild and find you still have a problem.
- thinkcontext 2y agoIf borne out this is pretty big. A huge amount of productivity is lost by parents taking care of sick kids or who get sick from their kids. Further it might even lessen the overall spread of seasonal diseases.
- readthenotes1 2y agoIf it reduces the strength of the child's immune system, this may rebound in horrible ways
- pjc50 2y agoThere's no good evidence for "you need to get sick in order to have a healthy immune system", and it leads to dangerous nonsense like measles parties.
- The28thDuck 2y agoSilly question: how does an immune system get “trained”? I imagine some of it is through familial transmission but getting sick seems to kick it into high gear.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoVaccines. Vaccines teach your immune system to fight specific viruses.
- _xiaz 2y agoThis ignores the fact that the vast majority of airborne common-cold viruses are not covered by a vaccine
- calmbonsai 2y agoIdeally, their own mother's milk.
- CuriousCosmic 2y ago
- thrance 2y agoI'd like to see the study first, how can we know that this year's flu variant wasn't just less infectious ? What was the sample size ? What's the p-value ?
- Retric 2y agoI get your concern, but large effect sizes make up for a multitude of sins.
- vhcr 2y agoFlu variants infectionness variability is just a so well known variable that the researchers would have to be really mediocre to not take that into account, the official press release mentions they're performing the studies on four kindergartens, so they're most probably comparing against each other. https://www.pandemicresponse.fi/post/can-the-spread-of-flu-be-limited-by-purifying-the-indoor-air https://www.pandemicresponse.fi/post/can-the-spread-of-flu-b...
- lurking_swe 2y agohave we learned nothing from the covid pandemic?
- pjc50 2y agoEvidently not. There was lots of early good results on air purification and UV, but there was absolutely no action or even official advocacy as a result.
- mdp2021 2y agoProbably a matter of cost. E.g. in some territories plexiglass screens were put everywhere between clerks and customers - as a measure that was considered more easily mandated and done (basically, simply cheaper) than modifying air treatment infrastructure.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago> air treatment infrastructure What do you mean, like a window? I think we have a word for this approach - lazy
- mdp2021 2y ago> What do you mean, like a Like air disinfectants through UV (following the post mine replied to).
- elric 2y agoWhat do you mean?
- _dain_ 2y agoThis is one of the three educational interventions with solid evidence of it working. The other two are air conditioning and free school lunches. People don't get excited over them though, because they have nothing to do with teachers or curriculum or educational theory.
- stevenwoo 2y agoThere's also the accidental study of air filters where the outside air quality was not that bad. study https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-188 https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai20-188 background https://wfis.org/installing-air-filters-in-classrooms-has-surprisingly-large-educational-benefits/ https://wfis.org/installing-air-filters-in-classrooms-has-su...
- amluto 2y agoWow. That paper made no effort to even contemplate whether the improvement was related to reduced particulate matter or to reduced organic gasses. The filters were installed in response to a gas leak — one would imagine they were carbon filters. Sadly, the literature on the effect of gas concentrations on human intellectual function is incredibly muddy.
- mmcloughlin 2y agoPerhaps there is some evidence that people do get excited about free school lunches: Governor Tim Walz’s lunch policy in Minnesota has been a part of the buzz surrounding his recent Vice Presidential nomination. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/19/universal-free-school-lunches-harris-walz-campaign.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/19/universal-free-school-lunche...
- olalonde 2y ago> free school lunches What are you referring to?
- pjc50 2y agoThey're referring to free school lunches. That is, a lunch, at school, which is free. In the sense that it does not have to be paid for on the spot or by the child or family on account. i.e. part of the educational provision itself. (carefully phrased to avoid "no free lunch" nonsense)
- photochemsyn 2y agoI wouldn't call this a statistically significant result, and the fact that the buildings in question had good mechanical air ventilation could very well explain the results: > "Utilizing the model, we used portable air cleaners in two day care units (A and B, number of children participating in the study n = 43) and compared infection incidents between the two intervention units to the rest of the units in city of Helsinki (n = 607). The intervention buildings had mechanical supply and exhaust air ventilation." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950362024000043 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S295036202... You also have to consider external air quality, as ventilating a building with polluted air would have negative effects like increased asthma. In that case perhaps a sealed building with air purifiers is a better option, but then CO2 buildup is a concern, so you'd need CO2 scrubbers, which are expensive. That's why clean air regulations matter, and getting off fossil fuel combustion as an energy source (and limiting pesticide/herbicide use in agricultural zones) is the easiest route forward.
- elevatedastalt 2y agoCould this be combined with masks for greater efficacy?
- bluGill 2y agoMost likely but nobody will allow you to suggest that.
- roywiggins 2y agoKids of daycare age probably can't wear masks effectively enough to make a difference, and if they can, it's not obvious that it's worth the effort. Adults could probably reduce how many colds they get by wearing masks everywhere, but most people don't think it's worth the effort.
- eleveriven 2y agoYoung children often struggle with keeping masks on properly and consistently, leading to frequent touching and adjusting...
- dumbo-octopus 2y agoMasks have directly contributed to a speech development epidemic amongst youth who were deprived of their ability to see and mimic mouth movements during their prime developmental stages. This has hit underprivileged kids who do not have english spoken at home especially hard. Masks aren’t free.
- maeil 2y agoIs there research that shows this? Should be incredibly easy to prove given a large percentage of the world consistently masked and another large percentage of the world consistently did not mask. For reference, I live in a country that had one of the highest masking rates in the world (probably top 10), and this does not seem to be an issue here whatsoever. Not a single time I've heard it mentioned, and given just how huge the focus on child development is here, there's no way it wouldn't be a massive topic.
- encoderer 2y agoEven better (where weather allows) is fully outdoor daycare. We were fortunate to have only the briefest of shut downs during COVID. Obviously impractical in many areas but it's part of the California dividend
- Rendello 2y agoIt was a big thing in the early 1900s too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_air_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_air_school
- esafak 2y agoAnd it's good for your eyesight.
- euroderf 2y agoYes. Lots of new results in this topic. Get outside and exercise those eyes.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoSo long as you are far enough from a major freeway, major road, major airport, or major port. With those requirements the number of californian daycares or schools that meet that criteria shortens significantly.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoUnless you don't want to expose your kids to sun screen, eeek /s
- modeless 2y agoNear UV seems really promising for preventing indoor disease transmission as well. Has there been any more research on it lately?
- amluto 2y agoDo you mean far-UVC, around 222nm? It seemed like the major issues were the sources being expensive, the sources being from dubious vendors with no standard certification (I would be concerned that my “222nm” source might have a lot of inadvertent emission at other wavelengths), and possible damage over time to whatever you aim it at.
- PaulKeeble 2y agoThe bulbs only last maybe 1000 hours as well which combined with their price narrows their usage.
- modeless 2y agoYes. Those problems seem relatively easy to fix compared to the immense benefit of a significant reduction in disease transmission across the board.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoDo you actually know they are easy to fix? Here on hacker news we have a long tradition of software people claiming that some property of a tangible world, like ‘no such material physically exists’ are easy to fix.
- modeless 2y ago"relatively easy to fix compared to the immense benefit" is what I said. Even a few percent reduction in cases of these illnesses would likely be worth tens of billions of dollars for the economy every year. And it could also be justified as defense against bioweapons. A hundred billion dollar program to improve cost and establish certifications could easily be justified if efficacy and safety are good enough. And I'm certain at that level of investment (much lower, probably) cost and certification problems would be very solvable.
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- 64bittechie 2y ago[dead]
- duxup 2y agoIs there any information on the type / price of these air purifiers? There's a lot of "air purifiers" out there on the market.
- PaulKeeble 2y agoIn a lot of tests Corsi Rosenthal boxes tend to outperform most commercial offerings and they are very cheap as they are a box fan duct taped to some MERV13 filters. Effectiveness is a lot about air exchanges an hour.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI have one of these set up on each floor of my two story house to cut down on particulates from dust, pets, and cooking. If they also help protect from disease that’s just icing in the cake.
- djmips 2y agoBox fans are noisy and in my experience fail early when running constantly. When their bearings fail they can atomize the grease.
- amluto 2y agoIt would be awesome if they were IKEA purifiers. Cheap media and excellent CADR/W.
- plasticchris 2y agoWith my experience around poorer schools in the USA I would worry that the filter wouldn’t get replaced for decades and itself become a breeding ground for molds.
- erikvanoosten 2y agoYou don't need poor schools for that. Just ~3 years ago exactly this happened to a public primary school in a rich neighborhood of Haarlem (The Netherlands). If I remember correctly, the filters had not been replaced for 8 years.
- PaulKeeble 2y agoThere has been a number of these studies in schools and hospitals showing HEPA filters reduce up to about 2/3rd of infections. We now know many viruses are airborne including Covid and Al Hubbard's studies on how long virus is viable has shown it can be hours and it's helped by high CO2. Air circulation and reducing CO2 makes a big difference as well.
- lolinder 2y agoDo we have evidence that CO2 is causal or is it still just a correlation? In general, poor ventilation + humans = high CO2, so unless there was a controlled experiment done that's a pretty strong confounding factor.
- icelancer 2y agoCO2 in terms of illness is merely a proxy for good air movement and exposure to the outside environment. It has its own impact on mental capacities of course.
- rockinghigh 2y ago> Results showed increasing the CO2 concentration to just 800 ppm, a level identified as well ventilated, resulted in an increase in viral aerostability. After 40 minutes, when compared to clean air, around 10 times as much virus remained infectious when the air has a CO2 concentration similar to that of a crowded room (3,000 ppm). > Dr Haddrell said: “This relationship sheds important light on why super spreader events may occur under certain conditions. The high pH of exhaled droplets containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely a major driver of the loss of infectiousness. CO2 behaves as an acid when it interacts with droplets. This causes the pH of the droplets to become less alkaline, resulting in the virus within them being inactivated at a slower rate. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/news/2024/virus.html https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/news/2024/virus.html Ambient carbon dioxide concentration correlates with SARS-CoV-2 aerostability and infection risk https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47777-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47777-5
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- xyst 2y agoAny HVAC professionals or plumbers know if a mini-split A/C system can be outfitted with UV bulbs? Have a few Levoit air purifiers that sit flush against the wall. But would be nice to have an extra layer at the source.
- abracadaniel 2y agoREME Halo was recommended to me and I bought one. Hard to know if you’re making a difference, but it’s something.
- thedougd 2y agoI would imagine it would destroy the plastic. A common problem with retrofitting stardard split systems. They require a UV resistant drain pans.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoThis would he huge. Aside from the huge benefit, it would be great not having runny nose or cough 6 months of the year.
- elric 2y agoI installed a Zehnder ComfoAir Q ventilation system in my home. It has heat and moisture recuperation capabilities. It's currently refreshing the air at around 100m³/hour. It has an F7 (aka "ISO Fine" or "MERV 13") filter. Since installing it, my asthma has improved a fair bit, and I'm sneezing a lot less. Added benefit, virtually no mosquitoes have been able to enter my home. I'm still considering getting an extra filter addon to filter out more fine soot from car exhaust etc, but even without that option I've been very happy with the results. Edit: hit reply too soon. Wanted to add: are air purifiers as effective as increased ventilation? Should we combine the two?
- turtlebits 2y agoGet an AQ monitor and a standalone filter, it will be able to constantly filter air vs the once during fresh air intake. Also my ERV only runs on demand (~1/3 of the time, which is not enough filtration)
- elric 2y agoWhy does it run on demand? Mine runs 24/7, though it ramps down to lower speeds at night or when I'm away.
- turtlebits 2y agoBecause my CO2/VOC levels are low enough that keeping in on all the time doesn't provide any additional benefit- while adding unwanted cool/hot air (no ERV is 100% efficient). The minimum airflow on my unit is 35 CFM (~60 m3/hr).
- elric 2y agoThat makes sense. Though I imagine that depending on where your CO2 sensors are, it could take a while for higher concentrations to reach the sensor, and then more time for the concentrations to go down once the fan starts spinning. One of the reasons why mine also runs when I'm away is that it helps prevent mould growth in the heat/moisture exchanger, as that thing is a bit of a pain to clean.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y agoIt's amazing that this seems surprising to people after COVID. Next up: * Air purifiers in schools cut parent's sick days too (not just "I need to care for my kid" days - "parent is sick" and "childless coworker of parent is sick" sick days) * Air purifiers in strategic locations (high density offices, public transit, schools, ...) cut sick days across the population. I think this will be our generations "realizing that washing your hands before surgery makes patients die less", and it's quite embarrassing that with all the knowledge about viral transmission we couldn't figure this out before the pandemic, and even more embarrassing that we couldn't figure it out immediately after we tested many of these things at a large scale.
- mdp2021 2y ago> I think this will be our generations "realizing that washing your hands before surgery makes patients die less" Surely not the same thing as Semmelweis. We want to destroy microbes (and viruses) in specific contexts, not indiscriminately.
- pjc50 2y ago> We want to destroy microbes (and viruses) in specific contexts, not indiscriminately. Apart from the known useful ones, like gut flora: no, we really do want to destroy them indiscriminantly. We bleach surfaces to do this, we can bleach air too.
- jMyles 2y agoLet's be a little more cautious and observant in our approach to antimicrobial stewardship. Yes, we can bleach surfaces, but pathogens (in relatively rapid terms) develop resistance [0]. Yes, we can reduce bacteria at factory farms to small numbers with the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal feed, but it's easy to observe that this trains pathogens to avoid our most powerful chemical antibiotics. And so it is with fomites, respiratory pathogens, STDs, and probably even with measures to control arboviruses. We live in an ecological balance, and discretion is the better part of valor with regard to ensuring that this ecology becomes more likely to nurture increasingly better health outcomes. 0: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7464077/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7464077/
- throw7 2y agoIndoor air environments are usually poor. Just having outside air from open windows would be an improvement.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoWhich easily excludes 80%+ of the places either due cold, heat or pollution.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoProper ventilation systems address that issue
- coding123 2y agoI actually hope building codes eventually include some kind of positive pressure system in the future where incoming air is hepa'd. PPSystems tend to clean the air the most.
- chriscjcj 2y agoCan anyone provide or link to some solid guidelines on what kind/brand of air purifiers actually do real effective filtration vs. garbage products? I have found that a great many of these "air purifiers" have great marketing and make amazing claims.
- sbochins 2y agoI’ve been happy with Austin Air purifiers. Most of the other brands help, but don’t handle most VOCs. If you have allergies or other issues, it’s better to stick with top quality brands. https://housefresh.com/austin-air-healthmate/ https://housefresh.com/austin-air-healthmate/
- tiahura 2y agoA 20” box fan and 4 20” furnace filters
- Rebelgecko 2y agoUnless you live in a place with very cheap electricity, you'll save money in the long run by getting a purpose built air purifier
- tedunangst 2y agoHow much money over how much time?
- Rebelgecko 2y agoIt depends on the box fan and your electricity prices. When I did the math for me, the break even point for buying a $150 purifier was on the order of months. But I'm in California where electricity is relatively expensive
- alliao 2y agonothing comes close to crbox in terms of performance... the gold standard IQAir do give you close to perfect single pass filtration but the cfm is so low and noise much higher...
- retrochameleon 2y agohttps://youtu.be/gaQTYrisieA https://youtu.be/gaQTYrisieA This is an extremely well researched and presented video that exposes the fact that HEPA purifier marketing is a bit of a scam. The most important factor in air purifiers is not the filter but Clean Air Delivery Rate. You can only make a difference if you are moving air through the filters faster than particulate is introduced into the air. I just returned a Medify filter because their advertised square footage is way higher than what the purifier should support based on the info in the video; it is inadequate. No idea how they are calculating their numbers - not to mention it's probably at the max speed setting - but it doesn't align with the sources from the video. On top of that, smaller air purifiers must move air faster, be noisier, and the smallest sizes of particulate are captured most effectively at low velocities. Use something like this to make a nicer version of a CR box: https://acinfinity.com/component-cooling/cabinet-fan-systems/airplate-s7-home-theater-and-av-quiet-cabinet-cooling-fan-system-12-inch/ https://acinfinity.com/component-cooling/cabinet-fan-systems... Or buy one of these: https://www.cleanairkits.com/ https://www.cleanairkits.com/ Those seem to be the best options that ACTUALLY work.
- schiffern 2y agoYes, almost all websites give the filter "square footage" at a measly 1 air change per hour. So essentially they take the CADR, divide it by the (assumed) height of the room, and that's the square footage or square meters. Very flawed methodology! Typically for respiratory pathogens you want to shoot for 6+ ACH, so as a very rough initial guess I often simply divide the rated area by 10. And yes, every manufacturer only gives specs for the highest fan setting. This is misleading because typically this fan setting is very loud, so few people actually run it 24/7 (and those who do will probably suffer hearing loss).
- jimberlage 2y agoAs much as I hate the amount of illnesses my kids get from daycare - maybe this shouldn't be a goal? In workplaces, hospitals, etc. we definitely want to reduce illness. In daycares, the kids are all building their immune systems and the contact with germs is a vital part of that. I definitely understand the teachers don’t want to be sick, and it’s a hardship on parents to keep kids home, so it’s not all about the kids’ health. But the kids’ health might be better served by letting them get more minor illnesses, not less.
- analog31 2y agoEven a third less is probably still plenty. And the putative immune system benefit strikes me as hypothetical unless the exposure and effect are quantified.
- stoperaticless 2y agoWhat do you think about vaccines?
- analog31 2y agoWell, I've got all mine, unless another booster is available that I don't know about. One thing about vaccines is that you know exactly who got them, and who didn't. This probably makes it a lot easier to study. And I'm willing to believe that some childhood exposure to pathogens is beneficial, but I don't think we know how much of a good thing is enough, or too much.
- jimberlage 2y agoDo you think that we’ve discovered and cataloged the sum total of milder pathogens that protect against worse illnesses in a lab? Got all mine means “got all the ones we currently know enough about to develop a vaccine for.”
- analog31 2y ago
- patrickhogan1 2y agoNow if they would just open the windows :)
- rajnathani 2y agoGiven that air purifiers could increase airborne endotoxin levels [0], that instead better ventilation should be prioritized as it also solves the higher CO2 problem, where we know cognitive function slows down due to higher CO2 levels [1]. Given that OSHA sets an upper limit on CO2 in the workplace, I wonder whether daycare centers have such norms enforced too. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202031833X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202... [1] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/energy/news/2018/dec/study-mitigating-effects-higher-co2-levels-productivity-receives-widespread-coverage https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/energy/news/2018/dec/study-mi...
- DrNosferatu 2y agoWhat kind of purifiers did they use? (couldn’t find in the posted article)
- optymizer 2y agoThis is silly. We can encode data in plaintext. What then? (this message contains a hidden secret)
- eleveriven 2y agoImproving indoor air quality could be a simple yet impactful measure to promote health and reduce the spread of infections
- donnaalbert 2y ago[dead]