{"id":2668,"date":"2023-02-21T08:24:09","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T14:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2023-02-21T08:24:13","modified_gmt":"2023-02-21T14:24:13","slug":"how-scientists-are-protecting-themselves-from-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/02\/21\/how-scientists-are-protecting-themselves-from-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"How scientists are protecting themselves from COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

(The Age<\/a>) I spent the past couple of days\u00a0reporting on federal parliament\u2019s long COVID inquiry<\/a>. Amid the discussion of science and policy and just how we are going to care for all these sick people, one small detail caught my eye: a box sitting on the desk in front of Burnet Institute director Professor Brendan Crabb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The box, Crabb tells me, is a personal air purifier. It\u2019s one strategy he has deployed to protect himself from COVID-19. And so far, he says, he hasn\u2019t had the bug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s plausible that Crabb got lucky or was asymptomatic. But talking to him and other experts in air pollution, it is clear that the people who are most focused on the risks the air poses to our health do things very differently to you and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI take it seriously because it\u2019s one of the few things you can do, and it\u2019s also one of the most neglected as a public health tool,\u201d says Crabb. \u201cSo there\u2019s a lot to be gained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans have a weird relationship with the air we breathe. We expect governments to tightly regulate food and water safety and to ship away our waste. But, perhaps because it is invisible, we often don\u2019t think about what we breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average human inhales the air about 12 times a minute. In an enclosed space, such as an office, that air is shared. Out of one person\u2019s lungs, along with their personal contribution of particles and gases, and into another\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The risks air poses to our health are not new. We just don\u2019t think about them. There are\u00a0perhaps 300 million<\/a>\u00a0acute lower-respiratory tract infections around the world every year and 2.7 million deaths (not counting COVID). It\u2019s not just viruses: when bushfire smoke choked Sydney in 2019-20, parts of the city experienced\u00a0a 3.2 per cent increase<\/a>\u00a0in all-cause mortality risk for three days following. Crabb runs a mental \u201cairborne audit\u201d for most spaces he enters: how many people are here? What\u2019s the ventilation like? Are we in a time of high transmission?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some spaces he avoids or wears an N95 mask. Those he judges safer, he attends with his personal air purifier. \u201cThey are the bottom of the chain of controls \u2013 we don\u2019t even know how effective they are, frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crabb\u2019s workplace has developed its own clean air strategy to monitor and filter office air (it helps to be the boss). At home, he has deployed three or four air purifiers. With the help of open windows, his goal is to completely turn over the air in his house at least six times an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to get COVID. I certainly don\u2019t want my family to get it,\u201d he says. \u201cEven though I almost certainly will, I want to get it as few times as possible. Clean air is at the heart of my own personal strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Lidia Morawska, director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology, is among the world\u2019s foremost experts on air pollution and airborne transmission. She\u2019s meeting a group of scientists on Friday night for dinner, she tells me. \u201cEveryone is asking the question: \u2018Will it be well ventilated? Or outside?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To deal with such situations, Morawska now keeps a list of well-ventilated restaurants \u2013 and ones with nice patios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She does not wear a mask everywhere she goes. \u201cIt depends on the situation,\u201d she says. It\u2019s about ventilation and time. If she\u2019s spending a lot of time in a room, or close to someone, and the room\u2019s poorly ventilated: mask on. A quick trip to the supermarket? Mask off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the car, Morawska usually has her air conditioner on recirculate to avoid pollution from other cars. But on a longer drive, carbon dioxide levels can build up in the cabin and make drivers sleepy. For long trips she makes sure there\u2019s plenty of fresh air coming in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sick of catching so many colds from my young daughter, I installed a couple of air purifiers in my house late last year. Morawska\u2019s verdict: they probably don\u2019t do anything. Sure, they cut the virus in the air \u2013 but if you\u2019re hugging your daughter, you\u2019re still going to get sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occupational hygienist and mask expert Kate Cole carries a small carbon dioxide monitor nearly everywhere she goes. Humans breathe oxygen in and carbon dioxide out; measure the levels and you have a crude proxy for how many people you\u2019re sharing the air with. Cole uses the monitor to help her decided if she needs to don an N95.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to tell you you\u2019re going to get COVID,\u201d says Cole. \u201cBut it\u2019s a crude measure to help understand when you\u2019re in a place that would present a high risk of exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, all these measures are up to the individual. Crabb admits his regime isn\u2019t sustainable. \u201cThey are the stopgap,\u201d he says, until \u2013 if \u2013 governments act on air quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t leave salmonella testing up to individuals, and neither should we clean air. \u201cThis should not be our personal responsibility whatsoever,\u201d says Morawska. \u201cWe need indoor air quality standards \u2013 and they should be legislated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(The Age) I spent the past couple of days\u00a0reporting on federal parliament\u2019s long COVID inquiry. Amid the discussion of science and policy and just how we are going to care for all these sick people, one small detail caught my eye: a box sitting on the desk in front of Burnet Institute director Professor Brendan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Is #covid19 inevitable for everyone? Interesting read from @theage #covid #covidvaccine @WHCOVIDResponse","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-covid","category-emerging-infectious-diseases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2669,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2668\/revisions\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}