The corona virus is spreading at a rapid pace! Almost every country in the world is now affected by the pandemic with more and more reports of new infections every day. A recent incident in Seoul shows just how quickly the dangerous corona virus can spread through the air in the workplace.
An employee who had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus infected more than 90 other colleagues and residents – without any direct personal contact!
Though the employer reacted extremely quickly, almost 100 employees were infected before the first case was discovered. In an open-plan office with more than 200 employees, one person tested positive for the SARS CoV-2 virus. The very next day, the relevant authorities ordered the closure of the entire high-rise building with a total of more than 900 employees and 200 residents in order to interrupt the chain of infection. But by then it was already too late! 94 colleagues in the open-plan office and 3 residents of the multi-storey high-rise building had already been infected with the corona virus.
Image source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/ )
Important here: It can be almost completely ruled out that the first person to test positive had direct personal contact with all of the other infected persons (colleagues and residents), of which there were roughly 100. Rather, it can be assumed that either aerosols, which had been coughed up, or virus-contaminated aerosols spread throughout the air in the open-plan office or in the elevator and were then inhaled by the other employees or residents. It is worth mentioning in this context that there is currently no obligation to wear masks in offices, something which would at least reduce droplet and aerosol clouds.
Pathogens that have been coughed up can thus float in the air for 5 minutes or longer and remain infectious during this time – an invisible risk for all persons in the room!
Only recently, Finnish scientists carried out a research project to investigate the infectivity of coughing up pathogens. They found that aerosol particles with the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that are coughed up, sneezed out or ejected when talking spread over several metres in an enclosed room, remaining infectious in the air for up to 5 minutes, sometimes even longer. If an employee inhales these airborne aerosols, some of which may be contaminated with the corona virus, there is an increased risk of infection.
Airborne viruses know no social-distancing. Only a permanent air purification system can reliably and permanently reduce the risk of infection.
Social distancing alone is therefore not sufficient to effectively reduce the risk of infection in closed rooms and especially in open-plan offices housing many employees. The government in South Korea has since recognised this and called on all companies to take additional preventive measures. The problem of airborne viruses is common to almost all facilities with significant amounts of public traffic: in call centres, for example, where employees sit and work closely in booths, which are often excessively small, or at the premises of insurance companies or banks and so on. Even physical partition walls do not provide effective protection against aerosols that have been coughed up, as these sometimes rise up to 3 metres into the air and only sink to the ground minutes later, having travelled several metres. During these precious minutes, every breath can cause a possible infection!
Since the end of February, i.e. for over 2 months, many people have been working alone in home office. So the attraction of working a normal day among colleagues in an open-plan office is more than understandable. The South Korean example shows just how quickly a wave of infection can be triggered and, indeed, how an open-plan office can turned into a hotspot for infections.
Therefore, do not rely solely on social-distancing or a stronger separation of work areas. Viruses in free-floating aerosol clouds do not adhere to such limits! Make sure that the air in the room is free of germs and viruses!
Trotec high-performance air purifiers such as the TAC V+ reduce the dwell time and intensity of spontaneous aerosol and suspended clouds in open-plan offices, thus creating a workplace with a greatly reduced risk of infection for customers and employees.
The area air purifier TAC V+ is an innovative solution for establishing low-virus and low-pollution work areas wherever they are needed. In customer reception areas, co-working spaces, call centres with many individual cabins or even in open-plan offices with many small working areas without partitions. Wherever the mobile air purifier TAC V+ is placed, its virus-filter flushes the air, creating a sanitized “clean work area” for the protection of employees and customers. In such a zone, the ambient air remains free of airborne germs and viruses as far as is possible. This is because the TAC V+ takes in considerable quantities of contaminated ambient air, passing it through its effective H14 HEPA filtration system. You can flexibly adjust this process by which the air is flushed in order to create a zone that is free from aerosol particles.
The high-performance air purifier TAC V+ functions maintenance-free, continuously cleaning ambient air and without disturbing your working process.
The HEPA special filter of the TAC V+ has a thermal self-regeneration function, which automatically renders the viruses separated in the filter inactive, leaving you and your employees to concentrate on the essentials. The process by which the filter decontaminates itself is thus 100 % automatic. This occurs overnight or outside working hours for example, so as to give reliable protection against pathogenic germs and viruses in the ambient air during the day!
Thanks to its globally unique combination of filter and decontamination technology, the TAC V+ safely reduces the airborne risk of infection in all areas with a high degree of public traffic. This protects your employees from the risk of infection and you from expensive staff absences!
Good to know: Not every air purifier is the same
The air performance of air purifiers is always advertised as having “free air-flow” or with “maximum air performance”. In practice, however, this often only describes the maximum air output of the fan – without any filter. This is often misleading for the user, who assumes the air performance includes filtering. “Real” air performance with the filter in place, however, is something else altogether. As a rule, an H13 HEPA/ULPA filter will only produce 120 m³/hour from 500 m³/hour maximum air flow rate. With an H14 high-performance virus filter, even less than 100 m³/hour of filtered air remains. As such, this performance is just enough for a room of 15 – 20 square metres!
In open-plan offices or comparable “workspaces”, where many people work together in a confined space, it is thus not sufficient to install just any air purifier with a few hundred cubic metres of air capacity and any old filter. In order to provide effective protection against spontaneously occurring, infectious aerosol clouds, high-performance air purifiers are absolutely necessity. These should be equipped with a special H14 HEPA filter and with a high filter class that can guarantee a basic air output of at least 1,000 to 3,000 m³/hour.
You should bear this in mind when calculating!
Interesting facts about the H14-HEPA high performance filter with a transmittance ≤ 0.005 %
With their first-class filter efficiency and innovative manufacturing, the latest generation H14 filters are very convincing. With a level of permeability of only 0.005% and a filtration rate of 99.995%, they offer a filtration rate 10 times higher than that of H13 filters. Thanks to these first-class properties, H14 high-performance filters are even used in operating theatres for clean air production and in other comparably hygiene-sensitive areas. The best criteria for keeping ambient and breathable air free of germs and viruses in the workplace in times of rampant epidemics.
All the H14 high-performance filters offered by Trotec meet the highest quality requirements which are obligatory for filtering bacteria and viruses:
- Each H14 high-performance filter is individually tested and given its own serial number
- The test report is enclosed with each H14 filter in duplicate as a certificate
- The original test certificate can be filed in the documents – and the copy can be attached to the air cleaning unit if required
- HEPA high performance H14 filters are tested according to EN 1822 and EN 60335-2-69.
Trotec has developed special high-performance air purifiers for almost every occupational safety application
In addition to the high-performance air purifier TAC V+, Trotec also offers other air purifiers such as the TES 200 or the TAC 6500. We can supply you with free-standing air purification solutions as required as well as air purifiers for integration into your existing room air system!
Our technical advisers will be happy to work out which unit is best suited to your application in a personal discussion with you.
Buying a unit: If you have any questions, please contact us per e-mail at online-uk@trotec.com or give us a call on +49 2452 962-400
Equipment rental: Please contact our TKL Rental Centre – by e-mail at online-uk@trotec.com or by calling +49 2452 962-160
