The cheapest and most effective preventative measure against transmission is air circulation from outside air. The solution is dilution! You want to avoid having trapped air. The easiest way is to open a window or door to the outside on one side of a room and another side, to create a wind tunnel. Supplement the wind tunnel by fans placed all in one direction in the room, so air will pull into the room from one side and out the room of another.
Keeping your business safe despite risks of those who may come in unvaccinated
1) AIR CIRCULATION
2) AIR PURIFICATION
For those who are unable to circulate outside air, a good air purifier with a HEPA filter is important. Dr. Yates recommends the Medify Air. The size purchased should match the square footage of the room for which it is intended for effectiveness.
You can also achieve both 1 & 2 with an easy DIY: a box fan with a HVAC HEPA filter. Our tutorial on how to make these is here:
And also, a reminder to change your filters religiously in your HVAC system if you have one.
3) CO2 MONITORS
To check how much people are actually filling your air with their exhalation, get a CO2 monitor. When people exhale, their breath is higher in CO2 so trapped air will have higher CO2 levels.
4) UVC LIGHT
The UVC rays disinfect the air and hard surfaces in the sight line of the light. They are good for spaces where you have trapped air and would like to sanitize the air when no one is in the room.
There are specific bulbs to use, UVC, with a specific wavelength. You need to use these bulbs and not LED-based because the LED types do not give off the correct wavelength to disinfect.
The length you need to use them and how many you need depends on the space. For a typical office or meeting room for 5-10 people we would say 2-4 lights placed equidistant.
CAUTION: Just like the harmful rays in the sun, it can hurt your skin and your eyes. You ONLY can use them when no one is in the room. We do the arcade for 4 hours every night, but 2 hours would suffice. You could also run during the workday when the room is unoccupied. We recommend using a timer to accomplish this.
Another thing to mention is that with long-time use, fabrics, laminate floors, plastics and color paint will fade just like they would with sunlight. You don’t want anything within at least 6 feet, and you want to place them up high. We recommend using a piece of thick fabric or poster board to set your light fixtures on if on furniture, or affix directly to walls or ceilings. Lastly these are glass with mercury so care must be taken not to touch the bulbs or break them, and proper cleanup needs to be done if they are broken.
All of these solutions can be used together too, if you want to be overly cautious, which is what we have done at the arcade.