Coronavirus FAQ: Got any tips on improving indoor air flow to reduce infection risks?
We regularly answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.
Over the past two years, we've all had a crash course in understanding how to prevent respiratory infections.
And we've learned that clean air – via ventilation (i.e. fresh air flow via open windows and doors) and filtration (removing particles from the air with a filtering device) — is really important for preventing COVID and other respiratory illnesses. It's something many experts knew all along. Now the public is catching on.
"Most of the air that we breathe in our lifetimes, we breathe indoors," says Richard Corsi, dean of the University of California Davis College of Engineering. And virus particles can linger in the air of unventilated places, increasing chances of getting sick.
Of course, those particles are not visible. "If people could see COVID in the air, it would make a lot more sense that what you need to do is clean the air in your house, exchange the air out, get fresh air in, improve ventilation so that you don't have a lot, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University.
