Southbury Town Hall using new device in hopes of mitigating COVID
As fall approached in
2020 and the pandemic continued to impact Connecticut, Southbury residents expressed concerns with possible exposure to
COVID-19 in public buildings.
This concern prompted Southbury Emergency Management Director Steve
Schnell and his team to research and provide additional ways to protect the public. As a way to complement mask wearing, social distancing and other safety protocols, the Southbury Emergency Management team discovered a company that created ultraviolet LED smoke detector-like devices that target the inactivation of aerosolized viruses like the coronavirus.
“These devices were brought to our attention by members of the (Southbury) Board of Finance and they put us in touch with GE Current,” Schnell said. “The GE Current company developed the devices and were offering devices for test evaluation purposes. This is the first disinfection lighting solution to be used in high-traffic areas in our (Town Hall) building ”
In November, GE Current gave Schnell five devices to install in Southbury Town Hall. Devices were installed at the front entrance, side entrance and staff entrance of the Southbury Town Hall. The remaining devices were placed at the entrances of
the rest rooms in the building.
“We put in a request and we got five devices,” Schnell said. “Our maintenance people installed them in Town Hall. They are low-voltage devices that look like smoke detectors. But because they need to be connected to an electrical source you need to have an electrician install them. Ours have been installed since the end of November.”
The LED ultraviolet device was announced by GE Current, the company that makes the product, in September 2020.
“Production for the device is ramping up,” said Tom Boyle, chief technology officer of GE Current, a
Daintree company. He added that two other towns in the country are preparing to install the devices, while they are already used in some dentist offices, schools and mixed-use commercial buildings.
“The product is still very new in the market and Southbury was able to get access to some of our early production. We do not believe there is another town in Connecticut who has installed the solution. But orders are growing rapidly and this may change at any time.” How does it work? “Certain UVC (Ultraviolet C light) wavelengths offer germicidal benefits by degrading the genetic structure (DNA) of viruses to the point they cannot replicate,” Boyle said. “UVC disinfection has been used in hospitals for years and increasingly in public spaces as emerging data supports UVC applications at doses below exposure levels defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission and American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.
“UVC solutions can help reduce viruses in air. Based on testing using ... [the] technology will provide 99 percent inactivation with less than six hours of exposure for seasonal coronaviruses, including SARSCoV-2, the virus that is known to cause COVID-19, when used as directed.”
According to Boyle, GE Current has completed in-situation testing with its devices on the aerosolized virus, bacteriophage MS2. Bacteriophage MS2 is a nonenveloped virus that is commonly used as a surrogate for viruses that are pathogenic to humans.
Bacteriophage MS2 is generally understood to be more resistant than enveloped viruses (which include coronaviruses) to UVC. The bacteriophage
MS2 testing resulted in an
88 percent inactivation of the aerosolized virus in a
10-foot x 10-foot room in four hours.
Schnell said the product and its use in the Southbury Town Hall is still being evaluated.
“The devices emit ultraviolet light and it’s been proven to inactivate airborne diseases,” Schnell said. “We are still evaluating how they are doing but we decided to purchase two more for our public works office building and we are considering getting more for other buildings. They cost a little over $500 each.”