CovidVentilation - The Psalter

Link to OpeningAfterCoronaVirus

Some thoughts, numbers and reading on ventilation during COVID

How far should our windows be open?

When someone sneezes, coughs or sings, they create aerosols that linger in the air for hours.
The purpose of ventilation is to carry those droplets out of the building before someone breathes them in.
The time to do that needs to be small compared to the service duration to be useful.
Assuming that we want the air changed 5 times per hour and the church is 20 metres wide, this means an average air flow of 100m/hour or 0.1km/hr
So the fraction of the wall that needs to be open is 0.1 divided by the outside wind speed in km/hr.
If the average height is 5 metres, then the required opening can be calculated in cm as 500 times that, 50/(wind speed in km/hr). Five cm for a 10kph wind. For a 20kph wind, 2.5cm should do.
Warren wrote on 1 Oct 2021:
As we move into late Spring and Summer (I could not support it earlier in the heart of winter), I do now support David’s proposition on air flow. If we do recommence any onsite worship, we should advise people attending that all our windows and entrance doors will be wide open during worship. There would be no A/c or fans used, and attendees and worship leadership would need to be aware there will of course be increased traffic noise and complex noise. And social distancing will still be a good protection. With all these riders applied to any and all our worship, it will restrict us for some time on attendance numbers. We could not expect all our congregation being able to worship at their preferred times, or together, for a much longer time.
Warren wrote on 9 Nov 2021
Like we have throughout the pandemic I propose we re-look at our settings for managing COVID at GWUC. In particular I propose that we wave the use of the A/c units in the church and use them WITH the windows partially open for the following reasons:-
When we agreed to that setting we did not have 90%+ Vaccinated and 84%+ double vaccinated.
We had not implemented the “only double vaccinated” attendance requirement at worship.
All major public buildings (excluding schools - only 10% have air purifiers - as it is a political stunt, not a true health initiative) are running their A/C units, such as shopping centers, council buildings, hospitals, Restaurants, nursing homes, Synod offices (Wesley House) AND trains. They do not have their windows open, as they cannot.
I propose that we use the A/c units in the worship space, because it is such a large airy space, AND have the windows partially open so as to maintain air turnover.
That we continue to require the entrance doors to be in the open position.
As this is primarily a daytime need, the cost of running the A/c with windows open will be negligent due to the solar system.
Not everyone can withstand heat and cold to the same levels.

Can a carbon dioxide meter help us determine ventilation?

Does our large volume save us?

The volume of our church auditorium is about 1500 cubic metres.
One person takes about 15 breaths per minute, each of 0.5 litres, with expired air being about 5% CO2, giving about 20 litres of carbon dioxide per hour, or 0.02 cubic metres. After an hour this would raise the CO2 concentration by 0.02/1500*1,000,000 or 13ppm. (Parts per million.) With acceptable concentrations of 400ppm above ambient of 400ppm at the end of a one hour service, we would be good for 30 people.

COSMOS article

Ventilating complaints about air standards.pdf
Virus is airborne; ventilation is key.
Purifier airflow rates of 3 litres of air per second per person are needed.
- This comes to 10.8 cubic metres per hour per person or 7500 m³/hr (Clean Air Delivery Rate) for 70 people
Samsung AX7500K Air Purifier $999 is rated as CADR 701m³/hr (Clean Air Delivery Rate)
A fallback ventilated system (for a naturally ventilated building) comes into operation when the detected levels of CO2 in the air rise above about 800 parts per million, so it could reliably improve air quality.

For the true scientists

See https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd9149 A theoretical paper from MIT on safe levels.

OzSAGE advice for schools

A group of independent experts in respiratory infections and pandemic control.
Recommends 6 air changes per hour c.f. 5 used above.
This is 9000m³/hr (Clean Air Delivery Rate) if relying on filtration.

How dangerous is singing?

See https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-11-27/covid-19-singing-choir-risk-safety-community/100630780 stressing the importance of ventilation.

Synod Flyer July 2022

Recommends 10litres/person/sec or 10*3600/1000=36m³/hr/person, about 3 times the COSMOS article.

Collected by DavidMorgan