The result of up to 1000 corona tests to decide on a possible lockdown. The TAC V+ Air Purifier from Trotec offers protection against infectious aerosols and viruses while singing.
- Currently 15 infected, 500 parishioners in quarantine, up to 1000 corona tests planned – fear of imminent lockdown.
- Singing during church services carries a high risk of infection, as infectious aerosol mixtures spread more easily in the room’s air.
- High-performance air purifiers with H14 high-performance filters from Trotec can be used immediately and protect against airborne infections.
- This technology, developed in Germany, is immediately available and already in use in many communities.
How dangerous singing together in worship can be was already shown in March in Washington State. In that case, a 61-piece choir group met for rehearsals. Despite observance of all distance rules, 53 of the 61 people present fell ill with Covid-19. Several people had to be treated in hospital, and two died as a result of the infection. Now it has hit again, this time a free church congregation in Germany. Already on Tuesday, the local health department ordered domestic quarantine for a total of 500 members of the Mennonite Brethren community after a fifteen-member family from the community tested positive for the coronavirus. Worship services of the church community were forbidden “with immediate effect”. The Menno-Simons School, which belongs to the parish and is attended by the infected pupils, has been closed as a precautionary measure. As of today, about 1000 corona tests are planned at the school to prevent further spread within the community.
The coronavirus spreads particularly quickly when singing
For some time now, experts such as Lothar Wieler, President of the German Robert Koch Institute, have been warning: “Droplets fly particularly far when singing. However, this does not mean the larger visible droplets, but so-called aerosols (droplet nuclei), a mixture of gas (usually air) and solid or liquid components that contain viruses in sick people. These tiny airborne particles are thrown out of the throat into the air in the room when breathing, speaking and increasingly when singing. While the large droplets sink to the ground after travelling only about 1.5 meters due to their weight (which informs the social distancing rule of 1.5 meters), aerosol particles can float in the air for several hours owing to their small size (about 0.3 – 0.4 µm) – and are breathed in.
This also explains why people attending church services become infected with the coronavirus despite observing the rules of distance and wearing mouth-nose masks.
High-performance air purifiers from Trotec reduce the risk of infection when singing
Trotec has developed an effective solution for minimising aerosol pollution during church services and thus enabling people to continue singing together, in the form of the innovative TAC V+ Air Purifier. This mobile air purifier not only reduces the dangerous aerosol load in the room air. Any viruses are also separated and killed with a filter efficiency of 99.995% in the HEPA heat-resistant high-performance filter also developed by Trotec.
Decisive for the risk of infection during a church service is the length of time virus-laden aerosols remain in the air. This is because – in contrast to the open air, where aerosol mixtures are diluted and replaced with fresh air by the air motion – the aerosol concentration remains continually high in enclosed spaces. The more aerosols are suspended in the air – and the longer they remain so – the faster these enter the body via the respiratory tract to cause an infection in the lungs. Around 50,000 particles, such as dust or pollen but also bacteria and viruses, are suspended in just one cubic centimetre of air. And with each person attending the service, the aerosol concentration in the room increases by thousands of particles per minute.
The operating principle of the TAC V+ air cleaning system: Thin out, separate and inactivate infectious aerosol mixtures in the special HEPA high-performance filter
Put simply, the TAC V+ air purifier transforms the air situation outdoors to the situation in the house of prayer and extends this by a highly efficient virus filtration and inactivation.
The air filtration concept behind the TAC V+ air purifier is based on two pillars:
- On the one hand, the aerosol concentration in the room air is continuously diluted with virus-filtered HEPA ultrapure air. To this end, the purifier has a high ultrapure air capacity – previously unmatched in mobile devices – which enables an air exchange rate up to 20 times per hour.
- In addition, airborne viruses and bacteria are first separated in an innovative, heat-resistant HEPA particulate filter and then killed off cyclically by thermal decontamination. This special filter of protection class 14 exclusively developed by Trotec is distinguished by a separation efficiency of 99.995 percent for particle sizes from 0.1 to 0.2 µm. Thanks to these features, H14 high-performance filters are even used to produce clean air in operating theatres and in similar hygiene-sensitive areas.
What sounds very technical in theory proves to be really simple in practice. The draught-free intake of polluted room air occurs close to the floor, and then the virus-free ultrapure air is returned vertically upwards into the room. Due to the mobile design, even large clean air areas in voluminous church buildings can be realised by using several TAC V+ air purifiers.
A service without singing is no service
Singing together during the service is a connecting element. Even though many countries do not have binding regulations on singing in church services, there are still exceptions. In some federal states singing during the service is already prohibited. The high performance TAC V+ air purifier protects parishioners from infection with the coronavirus and the church congregation from any restrictions in church service.
The TAC V+ mobile air purifier is available in several colours and equipment variants in the Trotec shop, as well as in all the Trotec branches in Europe.
Special conditions apply to religious communities, parishes and choirs. Would you like more information? Please do not hesitate to contact us personally:
Trotec STORE
Grebbener Straße 7
52525 Heinsberg
Germany
Tel. +49 2452 962-400
E-Mail: store.heinsberg@trotec.com
