Can Air Conditioners Spread COVID-19? [View all]
From NPR
Among scientists, there is ongoing debate about the extent to which aerosol transmission causes infection. However, it has been generally accepted that it does occur, especially in closed indoor settings. Consequently, there's a possibility that air conditioning may be a potential route of transmission — sucking in virus particles breathed out by an infected person and then blowing those infectious particles back out in the same room or even another room several floors away.
In fact, other infectious diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, chickenpox, influenza, smallpox and SARS have all been shown to spread through heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
(snip)
“We didn't focus on ventilation as much early on as we probably should have," says Abraar Karan, a physician and global health researcher at Harvard Medical School.
What we do know is this: HVAC systems primarily recirculate air in a room or a building and don't bring in any fresh air from outside. So yes, theoretically virus-containing aerosols could be sucked into an air conditioning system and then circulated around a building.
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https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/15/897147164/can-air-conditioners-spread-covid-19
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