FRONT DESK / ANALYSIS
T
he importance of air quality – as we get into what could be the latter stages of the coronavirus pandemic – has only grown. Earlier in the year an editorial in the British Medical Journal called for governments and health leaders to focus efforts to fight Covid-19 on airborne transmission through better air quality initiatives. Now, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, has said ventilation will be a key tool in fighting this pandemic as well as any other that may arise. A report commissioned by Sir Patrick and published by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC) a few months ago, says good ventilation inside public buildings and on transport systems is essential to reduce the risk of Covid-19 and other infections. In the report, engineers say the importance of ventilation is too often neglected, and that the Covid-19 crisis has revealed flaws in the way the nation designs, manages and operates buildings. Unless these are addressed, they could disrupt the management of this
and future pandemics, impose high financial and health costs on society and constrain our ability to address other challenges such as climate change. Clear, consistent communication and advice on ventilation from government and professional bodies are needed to help building owners and operators to manage infection risks, states the report. Clearly identifiable measures that can be implemented at a moderate cost will help to ensure that adequate ventilation is prioritised alongside more visible measures such as surface cleaning and social distancing. The study also warns that there is an urgent need to plug skills and knowledge gaps and put in place the training, reskilling and recruitment needed to fill them. In a series of evidentiary hearings, the Royal Academy of Engineering uncovered differing levels of organisational maturity across operators and sectors, and variation in the ability and motivation of owners to understand, manage and
AIR QUALITY
In the air tonight By Herpreet Kaur Grewal
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to govern issues of infection control. Investment in research and development is needed to clarify issues such as acceptable minimum standards for ventilation to support regulation by local authorities and others.
No ‘silver bullet’ Efforts to increase resilience to infection must also work alongside the delivery of significant carbon emission savings from our buildings. These two ambitions should be driven forward in tandem and efforts across government need to be fully coordinated. The report warns that technological solutions are not a ‘silver bullet’, and uninformed reliance on technology can even have negative consequences. For example, air cleaning using high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters or ultraviolet light (UVC) can be effective in reducing infection risks in locations where good ventilation is hard to achieve.
Professor Peter Guthrie OBE FREng, vice-president of the Royal Academy of Engineering and chair of the NEPC infection resilient environments working group, said: “Buildings make an enormous difference to people’s health and we have often neglected this in the past, which is bad news in a pandemic because they are one of the most significant levers that we have to control infection. “Longer term, this is a real opportunity to transform the way we design and manage our buildings to create good, healthy and sustainable environments for those who use them. We must also integrate this thinking on infection control into our approach to net zero, to prevent inadvertently hard-wiring a susceptibility to infection and other health risks into our building stock and management practices.” Dr Hywel Davies CChem CSci, technical director at the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers, said: “We need to support owners and operators with clear and simple guidance, emphasising the importance of improving ventilation while maintaining wider good practice on infection control.” However, in its response, the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) said the report misses some “crucial practicalities”. BESA said the problem was that many buildings were designed in a way that made it extremely difficult and sometimes costprohibitive to fit the systems needed to achieve adequate
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