Ventilation strategies to minimise the airborne virus transmission in indoor environments

Abstract

A key challenge to fight the Covid-19 pandemic is to minimise the airborne transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Highly crowded indoor environments, such as schools, become possible hotspots for virus spreading because the basic non-pharmaceutical mitigation measures applied until now are not effective in reducing the virus airborne transmission mode, which is the principal one in indoor environments and requires improved ventilation. In the present study, a mass balance equation was applied to typical school scenarios to evaluate (i) required air exchange rates for mechanically-ventilated classrooms and (ii) adequate airing procedures for naturally ventilated classrooms. In the case of naturally ventilated classrooms, a feedback control strategy was evaluated using the measurements of indoor CO2. Our results show how these procedures can be applied in real life to support continued in-person instruction during a pandemic.