We offer multi-modal devices that protect against disease and viral transmission and kill SARS-CoV-2 in seconds.
Laboratory tested and proven in multiple independent clinical studies.
Stopping the spread of Covid-19.
The risk of Covid-19 contagion is highest in indoor spaces, but can be vastly reduced by applying the highest measures available today to combat infection via aerosols.
Six people get together in a private home, one of whom is infected. Some 31% of coronavirus outbreaks are caused by this kind of gathering mainly between family and friends.
Irrespective of whether safe distances are maintained, if the six people spend four hours together talking loudly, without wearing a face mask in a room with no ventilation, five will become infected.
If face masks are worn, four people are at risk of infection. Masks alone will not prevent infection if the exposure is prolonged.
The risk of infection drops to below one when the group uses face masks, shortens the length of the gathering by half and ventilates the space used.
How Covid-19 is transmitted
The coronavirus is spread through the air, especially in indoor spaces. Scientists worldwide now acknowledge the role played by the transmission of aerosols – tiny contagious particles exhaled by an infected person that remain suspended in the air of an indoor environment. How does the transmission work? And more importantly, how can we stop it?
Aerosols
These are respiratory droplets that are less than 100 micrometers in diameter that can remain suspended in the air for hours
Droplets
These are particles that are larger than 300 micrometers and, due to air currents, fall to the ground in seconds
At present, health authorities recognize three vehicles of coronavirus transmission: the small droplets from speaking or coughing, which can end up in the eyes, mouth or nose of people standing nearby; contaminated surfaces (fomites), although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that this is the least likely way to catch the virus, a conclusion backed by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (ECDC) observation that not a single case of fomite-caused Covid-19 has been observed; then finally, there is transmission by aerosols – the inhalation of invisible infectious particles exhaled by an infected person that, once leaving the mouth, behave in a similar way to smoke. Without ventilation, aerosols remain suspended in the air and become increasingly dense as time passes.
Without ventilation, aerosols remain suspended in the air, becoming increasingly concentrated as time goes by.
Breathing, speaking and shouting
At the beginning of the pandemic, it was believed that the large droplets we expel when we cough or sneeze were the main vehicle of transmission. But we now know that shouting and singing in indoor, poorly ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time also increases the risk of contagion. This is because speaking in a loud voice releases 50 times more virus-laden particles than when we don’t speak at all.
These aerosols, if not diffused through ventilation, become increasingly concentrated, which increases the risk of infection. Scientists have shown that these particles – which we also release into the atmosphere when simply breathing and which can escape from improperly worn face masks – can infect people who spend more than a few minutes within a five-meter radius of an infected person, depending on the length of time and the nature of the interaction. In the following example, we outlined what conditions increase the risk of contagion in this situation.
In the worst case scenario – shouting or singing in a closed space for an hour – a person with Covid-19 releases 1,500 infectious doses.
In the spring, health authorities failed to focus on aerosol transmission, but recent scientific publications have forced the World Health Organization (WHO) and the CDC to acknowledge it. An article in the prestigious Science magazine found that there is “overwhelming evidence” that airborne transmission is a “major transmission route” for the coronavirus, and the CDC now notes that, “under certain conditions, they seem to have infected others who were more than six feet [two meters] away. These transmissions occurred within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation. Sometimes the infected person was breathing heavily, for example, while singing or exercising.”
The Air Guardian provides a continuous, high rate of room air changes by rapidly ingesting and disinfecting the air (with a 99.99% disinfection rate in a single-volume pass) surrounding and within the safe zone up to clarify area size in m2
The solution within the unit uses intense, patented processes for destroying SARS-CoV-2 and almost all other pathogens, particles and pollutants. The room air is forced through the system is (safely) along photocatalysed reactor corridor pathways where it is exposed to intense UV-C irradiation within the unit. The disinfected air is then filtered twice, ensuring no harmful chemicals or by-products are vented from the system. The downward ventilation of purified and disinfected air that is then continuously released into the safe zone displaces the room air, leaving only clean and purified air the breathing strata.
This continuous air displacement prevents airborne particle penetration, and offers the highest level of total room safety available in the world today.
To calculate the likelihood of transmission between people in “at-risk” situations, we used the Covid Airborne Transmission Estimator developed by a group of scientists led by Professor José Luis Jiménez from the University of Colorado. This tool is aimed at highlighting the importance of measures that hinder aerosol transmission. The calculation is not exhaustive nor does it cover all the innumerable variables that can affect transmission, but it serves to illustrate how the risk of contagion can be lowered by changing conditions we do have control over.
During the simulations, the subjects maintain the recommended safe distance, eliminating the risk of transmission via droplets. But they can still become infected if all possible preventive measures are not simultaneously applied: correct ventilation, shortening the encounters, reducing the number of participants and wearing face masks. The ideal scenario, whatever the context, would be outdoors, where infectious particles are rapidly diffused. If a safe distance from the infected person is not maintained, the probability of transmission is multiplied because there would also be the risk of contagion from droplets – not just aerosols. Making matters worse, even if there is ventilation, it would not be enough to diffuse the aerosols if the two people were close together.
Risk assessment
The calculations shown in the three different scenarios are based on studies of how aerosol transmission occurs, using real outbreaks that have been analyzed in detail. A very pertinent case with regard to understanding the dynamics of indoor transmission was a choir rehearsal in Washington State, in the United States, in March. Only 61 of the 120 members of the choir attended the rehearsal, and efforts were made to maintain a safe distance and hygiene measures. But unknown to them, they were in a maximum risk scenario: no masks, no ventilation, singing and sharing space over a prolonged period. Just one infected person passed the virus on to 53 people in the space of two-and-a-half hours. Some of those infected were 14 meters away, so only aerosols would explain the transmission. Two of those who caught the virus died.
