Different solutions for different buildings
Besides getting fully vaccinated, the wearing of facemasks is still the single most effective method of cutting down the transmission of COVID-19. But as Wang notes, there is a range of complementary strategies that can also be used to reduce the risk even further – but not all of them are equally effective in all types of buildings.
“As we see on the website, each building is different,” he says. “And so the risks associated with each are different. The effectiveness of different strategies should not be evaluated only in an absolute sense. We need to evaluate which strategies are most effective on a case-by-case, building-by-building basis. An air purifier may be very effective in a classroom, but much less so in a large indoor space like a concert hall.”
Wang does not think CityRPI’s potential ends with buildings. He envisions several other functionalities: one example is developing a method of calculating dynamic mitigation and risk assessment based on an individual’s daily movements, allowing them to identify potential exposure during their daily commute; another is using public data to assess CO2 levels and report ventilation conditions in local schools. It can also be adapted to track other airborne viral transmissions.
“The website can be extended to provide information not only about COVID but also, for example, influenza,” he says. “The methodology is similar. We would be able to provide some guidelines and inputs for those who want to reduce their chances of catching the flu or other airborne diseases.”
This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Advancing Climate Change Science in Canada Program.
Read the cited paper: “A real-time web tool for monitoring and mitigating indoor airborne COVID-19 transmission risks at city scale”