‘Urgent need’ for better ventilation
There is an urgent need to improve ventilation inside public buildings and on transport systems to reduce the risk of Covid-19 and other infections as restrictions lift, experts have said.
In a report commissioned by England’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, leading engineers in the UK said the importance of ventilation is often neglected and the Covid-19 crisis has revealed flaws in the way many public buildings are designed, managed and operated.
They warned that failing to address air quality in buildings and transport systems could "impose high financial and health costs on society and constrain our ability to address other challenges such as climate change".
Professor Peter Guthrie, vice-president of the Royal Academyofengineeringand chairman of the NEPC infection resilient environments working group, said: "Buildings make an enormous difference to people's health
because they are one of the most significant levers that we have to control infection.
"We must take action now to make sure that good practice in ventilation is widely understood and applied across workplaces and public buildings."
He added: "What we need is a concerted push by the government and others, such as professional institutions, to give owners and operators of buildings a clear message about the importance of infection control, and give them easy-to-find guidance, which helps them to take the right steps to improve things such as ventilation."