Aerosol spread

The main reason is there’s apparently no building services engineering / HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) experts on NPHET and we typically have very little expertise in this area in general, due to the relatively mild climate. Most Irish buildings have windows, not ventilation.

Our trains and trams, many offices, universities (at least parts of them) big shops and shopping centres have air handling or air conditioning, but that’s about it.

Schools in general, for example, are heated like houses, with radiators. It would be highly unusual to have any kind of air handling. That’s due to the climate and is similar across all much of Europe.

At the very least, we should probably installing large extractor fans in the windows of every classroom and restaurant to maximise air changes.

The other aspect is it would breech building regulations and put out energy use way up, which is also probably serving as a barrier to doing anything. To do this efficiently actually requires sophisticated air handling with heat exchangers. Otherwise, you’re just pulling heated air out of the building.

They just need to put stickers on them - COVID-19 ventilation. Do not close.

People in Ireland can be weird about closing absolutely every window and nearly suffocating the room. There an element of society here that has an absolute paranoia about draughts and seems to think “you’ll catch your death” from mildly cool breezes, when in reality all colds, flus and now COVID 19 are caused by viruses, not slight breezes on your neck.

I remember in both secondary school and university, classrooms that were so stuffy I would nearly be passing out due to lack of oxygen and if you opened them window you’d have either a colleague in university giving out about how there’s a draught, or a teacher sitting there in school with a jumper and about 2 scarves even though it was 25° absolutely point blank refusing my 10th request to open the window!!

I’ve also always found, especially this time of year, both in Ireland and the U.K., most retail is unbearably hot ans stuffy. You walk into a shop, you’re in a big coat and the shop staff are wearing t shirts and it’s like 23°C or more.

It’s one of my pet hates about shopping here in winter but, it’s worse when you consider those same habits are probably making those places much less safe than they could be.

The other big danger I saw this summer was inappropriate use of air conditioning that has 100% recirculation. I don’t mean big air handling systems, but the cassette air conditioners that you find in a lot of cafes and so on. They just pull air in, cool it, dehumidify it, perhaps pass it through a simple fluff filter (similar to on a tumble dryer for keeping fluff out of the fans and evaporator) and return it to the room. There’s no fresh air intake or foul air outlet to outside.

I walked out of a coffee shop earlier in the year that had that system on full blast. The air was cool & dehumidified but you could smell the mustiness of the recirculated chilled air and it would undoubtedly be excellent for maximising coronavirus exposure.

Thats me wrote: »

Open windows do interfere with conditioning system.

There is no air conditioning system on any bus or train here that has opening windows. They just have fans and heaters.

There’s full air conditioning on all Irish intercity trains, and only some commuter and DART trains. Openable windows indicates no air conditioning.

No city busses in the Dublin Bus or other cities’ Bus Éireann fleets have air conditioning, nor does the Luas. That’s just air circulation from fans. The city busses barely even have fans, which is why the windows steam up. They’re very, very basic.

The same applies in the U.K. busses generally don’t have air conditioning and there’s absolutely none on the Tube.

Think of it like cigarette smoke. If someone lights up in a closed room, you’ll have it in your hair, on your clothes and you’ll be passively smoking.

You can smell the particles and volatiles from a cigarette, but they illustrate quite well how micro particles can spread in air, even when you can’t detect them with your nose.