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- Morawska, Lidia, et al.
(författare)
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COVID-19 and airborne transmission : science rejected, lives lost : can society do better?
- 2023
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Ingår i: Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1537-6591. ; 76:10, s. 1854-1859
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This is an account that should be heard of an important struggle: the struggle of a large group of experts who came together at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to warn the world about the risk of airborne transmission and the consequences of ignoring it. We alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) about the potential significance of the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgent need to control it, but our concerns were dismissed. Here we describe how this happened and the consequences. We hope that by reporting this story, we can raise awareness of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the need to be open to new evidence, and to prevent it from happening again. Acknowledgement of an issue and the emergence of new evidence related to it, is the first necessary step towards finding effective mitigation solutions.
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- Morawska, Lidia, et al.
(författare)
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How can airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors be minimised?
- 2020
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Ingår i: Environment International. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-6750 .- 0160-4120. ; 142
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the rapid rise in COVID-19 illnesses and deaths globally, and notwithstanding recommended precautions, questions are voiced about routes of transmission for this pandemic disease. Inhaling small airborne droplets is probable as a third route of infection, in addition to more widely recognized transmission via larger respiratory droplets and direct contact with infected people or contaminated surfaces. While uncertainties remain regarding the relative contributions of the different transmission pathways, we argue that existing evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant engineering controls targeting airborne transmission as part of an overall strategy to limit infection risk indoors. Appropriate building engineering controls include sufficient and effective ventilation, possibly enhanced by particle filtration and air disinfection, avoiding air recirculation and avoiding overcrowding. Often, such measures can be easily implemented and without much cost, but if only they are recognised as significant in contributing to infection control goals. We believe that the use of engineering controls in public buildings, including hospitals, shops, offices, schools, kindergartens, libraries, restaurants, cruise ships, elevators, conference rooms or public transport, in parallel with effective application of other controls (including isolation and quarantine, social distancing and hand hygiene), would be an additional important measure globally to reduce the likelihood of transmission and thereby protect healthcare workers, patients and the general public.
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- Morawska, Lidia, et al.
(författare)
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Mandating indoor air quality for public buildings : if some countries lead by example, standards may increasingly become normalized
- 2024
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Ingår i: Science. - 0036-8075. ; 383:6690, s. 1418-1420
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- People living in urban and industrialized societies, which are expanding globally, spend more than 90% of their time in the indoor environment, breathing indoor air (IA). Despite decades of research and advocacy, most countries do not have legislated indoor air quality (IAQ) performance standards for public spaces that address concentration levels of IA pollutants. Few building codes address operation, maintenance, and retrofitting, and most do not focus on airborne disease transmission. But the COVID-19 pandemic has made all levels of society, from community members to decision-makers, realize the importance of IAQ for human health, wellbeing, productivity, and learning. We propose that IAQ standards be mandatory for public spaces. Although enforcement of IAQ performance standards in homes is not possible, homes must be designed and equipped so that they could meet the standards.For the past two decades, scientists have called for national IAQ standards and laws to be established (2), but so far, little action has been taken. The approach to IA contrasts sharply with outdoor air, for which quality is regulated and monitored and compliance with regulations is enforced. The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) published in 2021 provide recommendations for concentration levels of six pollutants and their averaging times (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, CO, and O3) and apply to both outdoor air and IA (3).In cases for which IAQ standard and guideline values were established by national or association working groups, the outcomes were inconsistent; often the criteria for the same parameter differed by orders of magnitude. The reasons cited for limited progress include different criteria in the selection of the critical study, in the starting point, and in the derivation procedure; the complex political, social, and legislative situation regarding IAQ; the lack of an open, systematic, and harmonized approach; and that establishing an IAQ standard is always the result of a compromise between scientific knowledge and political will. Because of the heterogenous landscape of approaches needed, such barriers remain intact despite the considerable IAQ research and evidence base developed over the past decades.
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- Morawska, Lidia, et al.
(författare)
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The state of science on severe air pollution episodes : Quantitative and qualitative analysis
- 2021
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Ingår i: Environment International. - : Elsevier BV. - 1873-6750 .- 0160-4120. ; 156, s. 106732-106732
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Severe episodic air pollution blankets entire cities and regions and have a profound impact on humans and their activities. We compiled daily fine particle (PM2.5) data from 100 cities in five continents, investigated the trends of number, frequency, and duration of pollution episodes, and compared these with the baseline trend in air pollution. We showed that the factors contributing to these events are complex; however, long-term measures to abate emissions from all anthropogenic sources at all times is also the most efficient way to reduce the occurrence of severe air pollution events. In the short term, accurate forecasting systems of such events based on the meteorological conditions favouring their occurrence, together with effective emergency mitigation of anthropogenic sources, may lessen their magnitude and/or duration. However, there is no clear way of preventing events caused by natural sources affected by climate change, such as wildfires and desert dust outbreaks.
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