This week we review the status of the Omicron variant and what the current data tells us and Fred pulls out his handy dandy CO2 meter and we discuss the recent workout of Switzerland using CO2 meters to help inform the air quality in schools
We have talked about the value of using CO2 as a proxy for air quality and more data continues to emerge that suggest this is an excellent tool that should be used to help inform and guide mitigation
Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
Hi, this is Dr. Nick, I’m the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business better health.
Fred Goldstein
And I’m Fred Goldstein with Accountable Health here working on population health improvement programs for employers, health plans and others. So Nick, we’ve been continuing to hear Omicron Omicron omachron Where are we? What’s going on? And what do we know?
Nick van Terheyden
Oh three Yes, we have and I all I can think of is Shrek one. And donkey in the line Pick Me Pick Me Pick Me is my sort of perception of this. It’s media, desiring your eyeballs and clicks and whatever else with very skimpy elements of data. And all I can say at this point is caution advised. Let’s wait for the data and appropriate sets of data that correspond to the situation that understand not just viral titers and antibody titers and you know, decline because to be clear, when you give somebody a vaccine, their antibody titers decline, that’s part of the normal mechanism. You know, that’s the memory cells, if we didn’t have declining antibody titers are blood would be sludge essentially. So what we’re really interested in is real world evidence and whether it’s more transmissible and I think even more importantly, whether it’s actually causing more severe disease, we don’t know. So wait and see,
please. And that’s really it. I’m sorry, go ahead.
Nick van Terheyden
No, I was just gonna say, um, I was gonna jump to your area, and that the whole thing of co2, which I think is truly fascinating, we’ve just seen some data emerged, somebody has pre published a little bit frustrating, I want to say, because there’s all these charts and information, and I think great information, but we can’t get to those details except through the Twitter, thread. But insight into schools in Switzerland, I think, Fred, and you’ve looked, you’ve looked at this.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, it’s interesting, you know, we fold this out before my co2 meter, I love this thing now. And I’ve decided, it’s now become much more valuable, because of what people are beginning to learn, obviously, we know and really recognize this thing is, it’s a disease that spread through the air. And when you look at indoor activities, you can get a sense for how clean or how much that air is changing by the co2 measurements, the more people in the room, if it’s closed off, their co2 levels are going to go up. And, and so that gives you a sense of what’s going on. If you open the windows, they’re gonna go down and some fresh air comes in. So what this study looked at, which was really good, and we’re still waiting for the Main articles, but they had 150 primary school classrooms. And in each classroom, they put in two co2 detectors that were monitoring nonstop. And they also were looking at other things like temperature and humidity in the room. And that’s sort of why they’re waiting for the study, because they want to check these other data points against it. But what they found was that they could directly correlate infections in the classroom with co2 levels. And they were actually doing weekly testing of all students and teachers in those schools. And they found, particularly in 60% of the classrooms, co2 levels exceeded 2000 parts per million, which is higher than we saw on the plane, as we talked about the last time, I think that’s higher than you saw at all right? Yeah, that was higher than any place I saw, which they also pointed out can impair cognitive performance, and that’s learning ability. And so it’s definitely now we know, they even found in some schools that it exceeded 3000 parts per million. And I think we just saw a tweet by somebody that said their daughter was in the classroom and what happened in that one?
Nick van Terheyden
Well, so I think this was one of the I’m not sure why that was the author. I didn’t quite get to the detail, but the individual that originally posted this certainly connected to it. He has a backpack monitor on his daughter. So he was noticing, and obviously getting some historical information, which I think is really interesting, send it and then look at it the following or the same day when they get back and say what happened in the classroom. I just think it’s extraordinary that we’re seeing those valleys. What are they doing in these classrooms so they hermetically sealing the children in?
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, and it was interesting because what they recommended these classrooms do is every hour at least three times an hour open the windows for Five minutes to get the airflow in and out of those even in the winter. And obviously, there are a number of different ways to improve airflow in these buildings. But they pointed out with some of this, that just following the ASHRAE guidelines may not be enough, you really need to get that air in and out of that thing and not just put a MERV 13 in there, etc.
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, and I think the good news about this is it’s another indicator, we saw it, I thought there was a decent study, or at least a decent look at gymnasiums, using co2 meters. Obviously, airflow plays a part of this. So you can’t it’s not in isolation, as we saw with that study in South Korea, where there was a 15 foot transmission. And I think that was pretty well ventilated, but it was, you know, steady flow. And I think disruption of flow. We’ve said this, throughout the course of the 90 episodes that we’ve been talking about this, the there is so many opportunities to rethink the way that we design and build, particularly around ventilation, the use of fresh air, I know there’s some costs associated with re heating. That’s one of the things that goes on aeroplanes, because you know, they re circulate so that they don’t have to reheat less of an issue down on ground level, because there’s not quite the temperature difference. But, you know, ultimately, we want fresh air. I mean, I think we all want that. I don’t want condition there, except when it’s too hot. I’m just
Fred Goldstein
gonna say. And there’s one other point to consider with this. There’s another study out of Colorado, in which you also have to recognize what are the activities going on in that room. And so if you’ve got heavy physical activities, you’re both exhaling harder, and inhaling harder. And they’ve actually come up with the equation, I’m still trying to work on this one, because the math is so far above me, that that says, Okay, if you’re doing physical activities, then this level of increase above ambient co2 levels is enough. If you’re, you know, you ought to be considering getting out of that room. Whereas if you’re just sitting in the room, like a library, obviously, a higher level would be okay. So yeah, take that into consideration.
Nick van Terheyden
And that’s not just the co2 and inhalation. But one of the things that I think we started to learn and understand is that the inhalation of the virus, which is the vector in nurse, the deeper we inhale it, the potential for more problems. Although, you know, some of the receptors are further up, so actually understanding all of this, and reconciling that and, you know, I know this because I’m sucking wind when I’m working out. So I know it’s heavy breathing. I know my compadres that are next to me are probably fed up with me huffing and puffing, but you know, it’s it’s essential information. And I think we can do a better job because if we see that then you go, Well, gosh, I better open a window. Oh, and by the way, you better have windows that open. Let’s just be clear, but I think this is just great news. We’re gonna have better quality air that is fresher. And it’s part of the sort of overall mitigation of pandemics and any future potential infective agents.
Fred Goldstein
Absolutely. Once again, another fantastic week. It’s great discussing new technology. We love tech, don’t we? And with that, this is Fred Goldstein with Accountable Health. Thank you so much for listening and joining us if you’d like to get more information, please reach out to Accountable Health llc.com
Nick van Terheyden
And this is Dr. Nick, I’m the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business, better health.
