- 15 reads
Our GREENandSAVE Team is pleased to share information like this about sustainability solution providers. If you would like to submit information on your company, please contact us.
COVID-19 woke up America and the world to the need for improved indoor air quality.
IAQ Technologies LLC is your “One-Stop-Shop” for proven and cost effective germicidal disinfection of air and surfaces across the commercial and residential landscape. We also provide Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to further help reduce the spread of Covid-19 and future viruses. In short, we focus on creating safe, healthy, and also energy efficient “smart” properties. We have developed a consortium of industry professionals, manufacturers, and installers, so that we can recommend and provide the most appropriate disinfection solutions for a diverse range of facilities in the US and around the world. We also offer $0 upfront cost options and turn-key projects that include rebate administration for the growing number of incentives launched following the Covid-19 outbreak. Beyond buildings, indoor air quality is very important for Controlled Environment Agriculture, and specifically advanced Vertical Farming.
To learn more about indoor air quality in Hawaii and other states, Contact Indoor Air Quality team.
Here is an example of Indoor air quality information for Hawaii:
COVID-19 Is Airborne. So Why Doesn’t Hawaii Have Pandemic Air Quality Standards?
For years, Peter Merriman has been concerned about viruses like the flu spreading through the air of his restaurants.
So even before the pandemic, Merriman’s restaurant in Kakaako has pumped in enough outdoor air to turn it over 24 times per hour – more air exchanges than the standard hospital operating room.
More recently, he invested in carbon dioxide monitors and ultraviolet disinfection lights for the Oahu restaurant’s HVAC system, plus HEPA filters and carbon dioxide monitors at his Waimea location on Hawaii Island. His other two restaurants on Kauai and Maui are both open-air.
Merriman said he ramped up the measures after reading in the news about how COVID-19 can spread through the air.
“We don’t want to get people sick,” he said.
But when it comes to airflow, Merriman’s is the exception. Most Hawaii restaurants are not taking steps to promote ventilation and filtration, according to a Hawaii Restaurant Association board member, and they aren’t required to do so.
City and state health guidelines don’t indicate that ventilation and filtration should be a priority. Addressing airborne transmission is framed as an option, not as an obligation or requirement.
Experts say that’s a mistake.
“There are thousands of superspreading events, and they are all the same thing: People in a room with poor ventilation breathing the same air, talking for a long time,” said Jose-Luis Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies aerosols.
“And restaurants are among the prime locations.”
As Honolulu allows businesses to reopen and indoor dining returns to full capacity – allowing people to sit among strangers, unmasked, for hours at a time in an enclosed space – there needs to be a greater focus on addressing the viral threat in the air.
That’s according to a half dozen scientists interviewed for this story who are experts in the areas of epidemiology, virology, aerosols, ventilation and public health.
While people are letting their guard down, the pandemic isn’t over, they said. Hawaii’s case counts are holding steady as vaccinations are underway, but it’s not yet clear how much protection the inoculation offers when it comes to COVID-19 variants that have already been detected on the islands.
Hawaii should respond to COVID-19 like a person taking antibiotics, Jimenez said. Even if you’re starting to feel better, you should continue with treatment.
Otherwise, he said, you risk the infection coming back.
