Germicidal UV: Probably Not An On It's Own Thing, But Definitely Part Of The Future
The coming decade is likely to be for air treatment what the late 1800s were for water/sewage treatment, though the pace of change is happening far more slowly than the need, difficulty, and cost warrant (we need it, it’s easy, and it’s cheap).
Part of that treatment is likely to be germicidal ultra-violet light. For some background on g-UV - ultraviolet lights with wavelengths that kill airborne pathogens here’s a great explainer - watch 7 minutes of this nearly 4 hour long video of a conference on airborne diseases (starting at 1:25:40).
We almost installed g-UV in our office gym. We would have if the company that we were in talks with hadn’t ghosted us. But we would have also installed it to work alongside enhanced air filtration. Instead we opted to purchase even heavier duty air filtration units and our aim is to offer an air treated in person fitness experience with markedly mitigated risks of airborne disease transmission. But had we installed g-UV installation the air filtration may well have been required as it would seem that g-UV may generate some indoor air pollution that good filtration would easily remove. More on this from Jose-Luis Jiminez’ substack Something In the Air
Finally, I once again think it’s time for me to start writing about non-COVID topics, and so look for hopefully at least a weekly post related to various weighty matters.