Question: Do you wear you mask in your homes, when you sleep, or in the bathtub? If no, the why not? Is it safe to assume the everyone lives in a vacuum sealed house? Is the air around your bed chemically filtered?
The short answer is its not really necessary to wear a mask indoors. Unless you are with others who are a possible source of risk to you or family.
The longer answer is again no. But for the far more important reason of ventilation.
SAR's Covid 2 as is well documented is an airborne pathegon, Its this pathegon that causes Covid19 and its related problems ,and is the reason as to why so many people catch it at home. That, and the lack of ventilation. More specificaly 'AIRFLOW'. Smaller respiratory droplets known as aerosols can linger in the air for several hours, increasing the odds of airborne coronavirus transmission.
No two indoor spaces are the same when it comes to ventilation. Some, like airplanes and hospitals, tend to have advanced ventilation systems that can quickly filter out potentially dangerous air. Others are bound to have less sophisticated ventilation systems, making coronavirus spread more likely.
Just being six feet away from somebody doesn't necessarily mean that you're protected from these small particles. And depending on the quality of the mask you're wearing, how well you're wearing it, and how well it fits, these particles can also get out and around masks as well.
5 tips for ventilation to reduce COVID risk at home and work
Open windows and doors, use fans, and set your aircon to pull fresh air from outside.
As many of us return to the office, and congregate indoors over dinner and drinks during the summer holidays, we need to think about ventilation to minimise the indoor spread of COVID-19.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, is spread mostly by larger particles called droplets, but also by smaller particles called aerosols, and by touch from contaminated surfaces.
Aerosol particles are lighter than droplet-sized particles, and can be
suspended in the air for longer. The suspension and therefore transmission of aerosols is facilitated by poor ventilation. Increasing ventilation indoors, with fresh outdoor air, is a key method of dispersing viral particles.
Ventilation can reduce the risk that just one COVID-positive person (who might not yet know they’re infectious) will infect others.
There are some simple measures you can take, both at home and at work, to improve ventilation over the holiday period and beyond.
1. Open windows and doors
The best strategy at home and at work is simply to open windows and doors.
If you’re having friends and family over for a meal, or your office Christmas party, consider moving tables and chairs closer to open windows and open up a door to create a through breeze. Or, if weather permits, eat outside.
2. Set your air conditioner to pull fresh air from outside
Air conditioners can help, but they must be on the right setting.
At work or home you don’t want to recirculate indoor air, as this just fans the same air around the room (but now colder or warmer).
Instead, always make sure your air conditioner is set to bring in 100% fresh air from outside. There are settings in offices that allow the system to increase air change per hour, meaning it can reduce the time it takes for all the air inside the room to be completely replaced with outside fresh air.
Aircons can help ventilate rooms, but only if they’re inserting fresh air from outside, rather than recirculating indoor air. Shutterstock
But the direction of the airflow is also important. For example, airflow from an air conditioner (that was recirculating air rather than pulling it from outside) was
implicated in spreading the virus to a number of diners at tables downstream
in a restaurant in China.
Offices welcoming back staff should prepare their air conditioners by having their engineers service the system to pull in fresh air faster than the pre-COVID setting (which may have been around 40 litres per second per person) at no less than 60 litres per second, per person.
In hospitals, aged-care facilities and hotel quarantine, qualified engineers should be brought in to assess the adequacy of the air conditioner’s airflow.
This is particularly crucial for any “hot zones” accommodating people who are COVID-positive.
The World Health Organisation
recommends hot zones have 12 airflow changes per hour (that’s 80 litres per second per person), meaning the air is totally replaced 12 times every 60 minutes. This is the gold standard for ventilation, and can be very hard to achieve in many buildings.
3. Use fans
Guidelines released last week by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend placing fans near open windows to enhance airflow. The recommendation is to keep fans on at all times when a room is occupied, for example at restaurants.
As with aircons, fans can be dangerous if they push the air directly from one person to another, and one is infectious. You should place the fan so it increases the flow of fresh air into the room, and shouldn’t be placed so the air moves from the room towards the open window or open door.
4. Don’t bother with HEPA filters at home
High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters
have been marketed as a way to reduce the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 particles in the air.
Their effectiveness is dependent on the airflow capacity of the unit, the configuration of the room, the number of people in the room, and the position of the filter in the room.
But there’s no evidence to suggest a portable HEPA filter unit will help in your home. So don’t rush out and buy one for Christmas.
They may be effective in
some areas of health care, such as a COVID ward in a hospital or in aged care homes, particularly when used in negative-pressure rooms. The combination of the HEPA filter and negative air pressure reduces the risk of aerosol particles escaping into the corridor.
5. In public transport, taxis and Ubers
COVID outbreaks have been traced back to exposure on public transport. For example, a young man in Hunan Province, China,
travelled on two buses and infected multiple people who were sitting in different areas of the buses. A study of this cluster was carried out by Chinese researchers, who put forward one theory regarding air flow:
The closed windows with running ventilation on the buses could have created an ideal environment for aerosol transmission […] the ventilation inlets were aligned above the windows on both sides, and the exhaust fan was in the front, possibly creating an airflow carrying aerosols containing the viral particles from the rear to the middle and front of the vehicle.
EPA recommends precautions to reduce the potential airborne transmission of the virus, such as ventilation and air filtration as a part of a larger strategy that includes minimizing close contact, surface cleaning, handwashing, and other precautions.
www.epa.gov
EPA recommends precautions to reduce the potential indoorairborne transmission of the virus as a part of a larger strategy that includes minimizing close contact, mask wearing, surface cleaning, handwashing, and other precautions.
www.epa.gov
Please note that even though it is mentioned in the indoor air homes article (HEPA) filters are now recognised as having limited use against the pathegon qua ventilation of spaces.
Long story short. If you/I/we have adequate ventilation in our homes at all times, chances in combination with our cleansing habit, sterilation and limited numbered contacts will help reduce the chance of any infection. I say reduce as nothing is certain and nothing is a sureity.