Reducing infection risk and optimization of airing concepts for indoor air quality by accurate aerosol and CO2 measurement

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the findings about the virus transmission route through aerosols, indoor air quality is a major topic when it comes to efforts to contain the spread of SARSCoV- 2 in the population. Most calculations of infection risk, however, still rely on CO2 as a proxy for exhaled aerosols. This assumption is no longer valid when air filtration devices are used, arising the need to include actual measured aerosol concentration into the calculation of indoor infection risk. To close this gab, a version of Wells-Riley equation, extended to include the effect of air filtration into determination of reproductive number, is introduced and applied to measurement data from indoor air quality during school lessons. The results show, that taking only CO2 into account will overestimate the real infection risk from aerosols by 20% in the cases without air filtration and by 60% in the cases with air filtration. Furthermore, measurement results varied strongly between different classrooms. This indicates that general airing recommendation, as applied during these tests, are not enough to assure a healthy environment and more individual measurements are necessary.