It actually seems to me that daycares would be a natural setting to trial the new consumer far-UVC, air purifiers, good HEPA filters, or mandatory daily flu/COVID testing for the kids. You could potentially have a rule that kids who come in sick get semi-quarantined (only contact is with masked adults/sibs, they must wear a mask). That’s a setting where it might really make a noticeable difference and where you don’t have to convince an institution to retrofit a whole large building.
Apparently an air purifier cut sick days by a 3rd in Helsinki.
I agree and have thought that a daycare that leans into these measures would be great. The economic benefit alone of minimizing sick days that parents must take to care for sick children would be huge.
One small comment about the Ryan C. W. (2023) article on the 1940s data is that it is referencing upper room Germicidal Ultraviolet Light (GUV) which is about 254nm light and not far-UVC which is 222nm. GUV could be used in a daycare setting in the modern day, however, it would require specific infrastructure that far-UVC probably would not need (the CDCmentions a minimum of 8 foot ceilings).
we used portable air cleaners in two day care units (A and B, number of children participating in the study n = 43) and compared infection incidents between the two intervention units to the rest of the units in city of Helsinki (n = 607). … At day care centre A the average reduction was 60% (range 52% − 88%) and at day care centre B 53% (range 14% − 59%). … On average, the parents were absent from work due to child’s illness in reference day care centers for 5.53 days and 3.77 days in intervention day care centers during the study period (p=0.009). In relative terms the reduction was approximately 32%.
It actually seems to me that daycares would be a natural setting to trial the new consumer far-UVC, air purifiers, good HEPA filters, or mandatory daily flu/COVID testing for the kids. You could potentially have a rule that kids who come in sick get semi-quarantined (only contact is with masked adults/sibs, they must wear a mask). That’s a setting where it might really make a noticeable difference and where you don’t have to convince an institution to retrofit a whole large building.
Apparently an air purifier cut sick days by a 3rd in Helsinki.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20062381
There’s also an ongoing trial called CLAIRE on using HEPA filters in schools.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07479420
A re-analysis of data from the 1940s found far-UVC dramatically reduced child absenteesism due to respiratory illness
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9915224/#:~:text=Odds%20ratios%20for%20the%20effect,and%20a%20half%20by%20GUV.
Far-UVC has been shown to be extremely effective in reducing pathogen load in the air.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35322064/
Maybe it’s time for somebody to open an aggressively sanitary daycare.
I agree and have thought that a daycare that leans into these measures would be great. The economic benefit alone of minimizing sick days that parents must take to care for sick children would be huge.
One small comment about the Ryan C. W. (2023) article on the 1940s data is that it is referencing upper room Germicidal Ultraviolet Light (GUV) which is about 254nm light and not far-UVC which is 222nm. GUV could be used in a daycare setting in the modern day, however, it would require specific infrastructure that far-UVC probably would not need (the CDC mentions a minimum of 8 foot ceilings).
Another site that has some good far-UVC resources is @jefftk’s site https://www.faruvc.org/.
Good ideas, except it’s not really possible for two-year olds to wear a mask.
Sure it is! You just need to use a powered version. https://pekesafety.com/collections/powered-air-purifying-respirators
Hard to tell because I can’t find a news article linking the study, but I think https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950362024000043 is the Helskinki study.