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I am one of five teacher in a large open classroom at a high school in suburban Virginia. There are about 50 students in the classroom at a maximum, but often much less. I don't know much about their vaccination rates, except for a few students who are vaccinated, and a few who are not- I'd presume the population is similar to the regional average for the high school age group, which I can't find. I've been wearing a KN95 mask all day, but prior to winter break, the 5 of us teachers would take off our masks to eat lunch at our desks while most of our students went out to the hallway tables to eat. Now, I have added a face shield to the mask, and am concerned about what to do about lunch. We've been clearing the students who normally would stay near us either out into the hallway or to the other side of the space, perhaps 100 feet away. I am wondering about aerosol droplets remaining in the air after students have left- given that Omicron does not seem to require nearly the viral load that the prior strains did for infection, is there any rule of thumb for how long one should wait for the air to clear after people leave a space? I remember thinking it was 15 minutes previously, but I'm wondering if that is different for Omicron. For reference, I am boosted, 37 years old and have a BMI of 34, but am otherwise fairly healthy, and I have an unvaccinated 3-year old at home who is seemingly healthy as well- she is my main concern. Thank you.
Indoor air quality and ventilation are the keys to trying to further minimizing your risk of exposure and infection. If the air is relatively stagnant (poor ventilation) in the classroom then the virus may still be present after 15 minutes, so there is no simple rule of thumb for a set amount of time. There are a number of things that can be done to improve the ventilation of the indoors environment. One, open windows and doors to facilitate fresh air coming in and moving “bad” air out of the room. Note of caution that some older buildings have HVAC systems which re-circulate air from one room to other rooms so sometimes cranking up the HVAC is not always a good idea. It sounds like there could be a major problem with the hallways if students are congregating in these spaces (with poor ventilation) and are maskless together (while eating). Two, the times people are at highest risk in the workplace is during mealtimes when people cannot eat and wear a mask, so shared lunchrooms, breakrooms, cafeterias, etc. are risk areas. Three, temporary fan units (floor fans, window fans, etc.) can help with circulating more air and may help with ventilation. Four, filtering the air will also help to improve the air quality, HEPA filtering units are available but can be costly. I suggest perhaps a student project could be to build a few Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes—look up on your internet browser for DIY builds. The Corsi-Rosenthal Box requires simple materials of a standard box fan and 4 common commercially-available air filters (MERV13 rating preferred), cardboard, and duct tape. [image below taken from NPR.org:
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With some high-quality air filters, and a lot of duct tape, some teachers are making DIY air purifiers – one that was designed by experts but can be built by amateurs.
www.npr.org
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