Take Charge of Air Quality
For most of the 20th century, medicine focused on pathogen transmission via water, hands & surface contact. Recent research has triggered a paradigm shift as aerosol scientists prove most remaining modern diseases such as flu, colds, RSV, MERS, measles COVID, and even strep A (scarlet fever) are primarily airborne. According to the CDC, contact with an infected surface has only 1 in 10,000 chance of causing COVID infection.
Infection control must refocus. Each doubling of a room's filtration rate or air changes per hour (ACH) can halve accumulation & transmission risk for these airborne pathogens.
Well-maintained HVAC top out around 4-6 air changes per hour (ACH). Older buildings may only get 2-3 ACH, and most homes < 1 ACH. Pre-pandemic, only hospital isolation and operating rooms were designed for 12 ACH.
Adding a Tower of Power or Luggable XXL to large rooms like classrooms (~800 sq ft) with legacy 2-3 ACH ventilation will double cleaning rates into 5-6 ACH range. Multiple studies have shown 70-82% reduction in COVID transmission rates for this range. Two Tower of Power can boost an already good 5-6 ACH classroom to excellent 10-12 ACH. Smaller CleanAirKits can do the same for medium rooms (~450 sq ft).
Because most homes have < 1 ACH by default, placing smaller cleaners like the Exhalaron in bedrooms and medium cleaners like Luggable XL or EndTable in living and dining areas should substantially slow transmission of airborne pathogens. Without mitigation, Omicron spreads to other members of the household 50-80% of the time. Aggressive filtration reduces risk of transmission while pre-symptomatic. This allows more time to detect, mask & isolate, and makes isolation less onerous as pathogens can be captured before they spread beyond the isolation area to rest of house. The whole family need not get sick each time one member catches something! Here are anecdotal examples of home transmission stopped with CR Boxes.
The figure above is a bit pessimistic, as high air cleaning rates reduce virus counts during near-field face-to-face transmission as well, but maybe not enough to overcome a high viral load spreader. Mitigations like masking, nasal sprays, oral pro-biotic Blis K12 and air purifiers that reduce the infectious dose your immune system needs to fight off give your trained immune system a much better chance at avoiding infection, as demonstrated by this study. It shows that prior infection or vaccination helped prisoners avoid infection from low-dosage exposure elsewhere in cell block, but not from heavier exposures from their cellmates.
⚠️WARNING: Just like outdoor transmission still occurs in crowds and speaking face to face, air cleaning is not a substitute for well-fitted n95 masks in close interactions. Air cleaning complements masking to speed pathogen removal at a distance and increase safety for people well-separated from a contagious source. For two layers of protection in indoor gatherings, ask guests for same-day rapid COVID tests or wearing n95 masks in addition to air filtering.
Affordably Safer Spaces
What if we boosted shared spaces like classrooms, restaurants, dining & family rooms to 10-12 ACH, the range of hospital isolation & operating rooms? Infection risk should lower towards outdoors, with 1/20 the rate of indoor transmission.
HEPA purifiers don't clean fast, quiet, or affordably enough to reach this goal in most rooms. DIY Corsi Rosenthal cubes can, but are often rejected for their noise & bulk.
Clean Air Kits have perfected the C-R strategy pairing powerful fans with high-flow MERV13 filters. Our banks of silent pressure fans match CR Box capacities at 1/5 noise, 1/5 power, and half the footprint. We bring you affordably silent breakthroughs in bulk air purification.
For each PC fan CR box sold, CleanAirKits will donate $3 to the Corsi-Rosenthal Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing cleaner and safer air to underserved communities.