Fred Goldstein returns from his travels with his CO2 meter still in hand and apparently beeping at some surprising locations. We discuss what the readings mean, why they might be useful and what he learnt from the data gathered on his trip that including flying, conference halls and waiting areas
We also review the latest guidance from the FDA that has approved the Pfizer vaccine for children 5 and up and discuss parental concerns and how to approach the decision based on the vaccine data
Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
Hi, this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business better health.
Fred Goldstein
And I’m Fred Goldstein with Accountable Health here helping companies with their employee health and benefits programs.
Nick van Terheyden
So, Fred, you’ve been roaming the world with co2 sensor in hand scaring people? What’s going on?
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, as we talked about the last time, I got the sensor, and as you can see, right now, the room I’m in is measuring 686 698. Yeah, so I’ve been traveling around with this on airplanes at a conference in rooms, etc, just measuring it randomly as I go. And it’s really been some fascinating stuff. So the way this works is, they’re looking at the background concentration of co2 in the air. And, and because we, as human beings expel co2, as we breathe. If you put humans or other animals, mammals that are into a room and they’re breathing away, they’re going to go ahead and increase that co2 Concentration unless you’re changing that air out. So it’s a pretty good way to understand what kind of air circulation you have in a enclosed space or outdoors. And the typical outdoor measurements that I’ve seen is 400, to 500. And apparently normal background is 250, to 400. And if you’re an indoor space that has good exchange, you’re gonna see 400 to 1000. Once you get to 1000, to 2000, you can have issues with drowsiness, and it’s considered poor air, and above 2000 to 5000, you start seeing headaches and things, and it can be considered stale air. So as I went around the country, and in and out of these rooms, I would pop this baby out, and I would turn it on. One of the interesting things is it beeps initially, so people obviously get a little nervous. And we set the beep at 1000, which is where the air level starts to be considered poor quality. And so as I did this, the first area where I really noticed an issue was, believe it or not, Nick and we’ve talked about this a lot off the air is airplanes, you know, airplanes are supposed to have these great systems, right? You probably know that better than I. So maybe you can talk a little bit about what the airplanes do.
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, so that they’re promoted and positioned. And in fact, papers. In fact, United did a whole study, I think with the mayo could have been the Cleveland Clinic, I forget, they have mannequins they had all these senses. And you know, the Monday airplanes essentially have a very significant airflow that comes from the top, it’s sucked out in the bottom. It’s segmented by about two to three rows at a time. So if you’re in that section, you’re getting the same sort of circulation of air, and it’s being HEPA filtered in the air conditioning packs that essentially manage all of that and promoted, not pre COVID-19 as a preventative and a healthy is probably a little bit strong, but a positive, you know, approach to preventing any transmissible diseases by virtue of that whole system, yet, you seem to have found something that contradicts that.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah. And the truth is, perhaps on this like contradicts, in a sense, but clearly isn’t that high range that is considered not satisfactory clear in the air. So one of the interesting things was the first flight I was on was a Southwest flight to Denver, and I pulled it out and had on my seat thing in front, I had a row to myself, and I was consistently getting 313 100 to 1400 parts per million of co2, which is in that range of considered poor air, you know, certainly you’re not clear enough to get below 1000. What was even more interesting is I would measure in, like, even before I got on the plane at the Jacksonville airport, I had a reading in the line of 950, where they were all stacked before the Southwest flight to get on, you know, and that’s a pretty high room, etc. But everyone was close together. So that was pretty high and close. But the amazing thing was on a Delta flight on a 757 200 that was packed full. It was about 900. When we got on I was a fairly early boarder main one, and about in seat 22, which was about five from the entrance. And because a bunch of went to the front and that plane, the rest of the rear, and I was on an aisle seat, and by the time we backed out and the plane had stopped and didn’t start it’s it’s jet loaded for a while jet engines. I, I got a reading almost 2400 Which is really high. And that sort of stunned me. I think it was 2385 and ultimately went down. But even on the flight it stayed over 1000 and about 13 to 1400 again, so clearly, I don’t know that the air is getting circulate as well in those airplanes as maybe we believed. Now is that really bad? Probably not. But it does point to the fact that maybe there’s more of an opportunity there to do so you do a little better or to potentially become infected on a plane. Yeah,
Nick van Terheyden
I would say the other thing relative To that is certainly from a cost basis, the there was some reduction in the circulation of air to try and reduce the cost because there’s a cost associated with some of the settings in terms of heating, bringing in fresh air and so forth. So, I don’t know, that’s a little bit surprising, albeit, you know, this is just Fred’s data gathering, experiment, but you know, still worthy of investigation. I’d love to learn more about this. And, you know, we’ll certainly try and do that since you’ve now got the device. Right? Absolutely. And
Fred Goldstein
even in the conference rooms, I was in never went over 1000 in those, and they did that thing and things like that. So that was nice to see where the exhibit halls that I was in. So that was great. So the other big piece of news this week, and I know, we’ve been talking about this, but really important is children’s vaccines. And where are we with those now?
Nick van Terheyden
Well, the good news is that the FDA have said or have approved the Pfizer vaccine, so that kids from ages five to 11. So we have the older age group 12, and up what had already been cleared, they’ve now approved it, they did struggle with it a little bit. And to be clear, it still has to then get ratified by the CDC to then authorize it. But that’s excellent news. I know, there’s lots of parents who, you know, want to protect their children in the same way that we protect it all the adults. The challenge, certainly for parents here is to sort of take into account side effects and problems specifically with the vaccine. So it’s a risk reward as it is with everything. And, you know, the predominant thing that we’ve seen or heard about is myocarditis, so that’s inflammation of the heart. And then multi system in multi system inflammation symptoms in children or miss See, as it’s abbreviated to, we’ve seen small numbers of this, and there was a relatively small study, not a large number of patients that was published looking at those numbers in pediatrics. And the good news was, the majority of them all by the, the follow up that they had achieved, had resolved all of the indications of that inflammation that was showing up and it was showing up on an MRI. So in some instances, you might not know unless they had any symptoms, all of that was resolving in the majority of those without any supportive therapy with iron tightrope. So you know, when we have people that have cardiac problems, we have to give them drugs, there was none of that or no requirement. That doesn’t mean say it’s zero risk, like all of these things. So it does have to be taken into account. As with all these things, this is something that you have to have the conversation with your pediatrician who knows you, your family, your children, all of the circumstances. But the general guidance here is that the risk reward very high, it is much more beneficial for the children to get vaccinated and not get the disease specifically, because there are some other securely around this particularly around long COVID.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, we’re really seeing the stuff around long COVID start to show up. And hopefully we’ll get more studies to indicate just how frequently that occurs and how bad that might be for individuals. But obviously, some good news again, as you talked about, talk to your physician, I guess is really the key with this, right?
Nick van Terheyden
Absolutely. Talk to your physician. They know you your children make an informed decision. But the general guidance is vaccines work and they’re safe in the five and up now, which is good news, we can now start to broaden the population that can be fully vaccinated.
Fred Goldstein
Well, thanks so much, Nick. Once again. Great week. This is Fred Goldstein with Accountable Health if you’d like more information, please go to Accountable Health. llc.com
Nick van Terheyden
and this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business, better health.
