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Air Cleaners Don’t Stop You Getting Sick, Research Shows (www.uea.ac.uk)

submitted 10 months ago by shreddy_scientist@lemmy.ml to c/science@lemmy.ml

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Air filtration systems do not reduce the risk of picking up viral infections, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

A new study published today reveals that technologies designed to make social interactions safer in indoor spaces are not effective in the real world.

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[–] shreddy_scientist@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

This paper points out the filtration of SARS-CoV-2 isn't clear cut whatsoever. Papers stating it could be filtered from the air all demonstrated to have publication bias. The thing about viruses is they are super tiny. On average, a virus is 10x smaller than a bacterial cell. This makes filtration much more difficult to accomplish.

The study found the most effective methods for air purification were germicidal lights, ionisers, and electrostatic cleaners. With HEPA specifically, the filters can snag objects as small as 0.3μm. However, the largest viruses are 500nm or 0.5μm in diameter. Based on the numbers, HEPA filtration is capable of removing the largest viruses from the air, but that's a small minority of all viruses. SARS-CoV-2 comes in somewhere between 60nm/0.06μm to 140nm/0.14μm in diameter, meaning HEPA filtration can not remove it from the air.

[–] treefrog@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ahhh.. I checked the size but thought microns and nanometers were interchangeable terms. Thanks for the correction.

[–] shreddy_scientist@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I was taught μm stands for micrometers, which are 1,000 times smaller than millimeters. Nanometers(nm) are 1,000 times smaller than micrometers(μm), which means nanometers are CRAZY small!