ABSTRACT
The importance of effective ventilation as one of the measures against COVID-19 is widely recognized worldwide. In Japan, at the early stage of the pandemic, in March 2020, an official announcement was made about basic ventilation measures against COVID-19. WHO also used the term 'long-range aerosol or long-range airborne transmission';for the first time in December 2021. Based on the aerosol infection control measures before 2021 by the Japanese government, we conducted experiments on methods related to partition placement as an element of effective ventilation methods. In July 2022, the governmental subcommittee on Novel Coronavirus Disease Control provided an emergent proposal about effective ventilation methods to prevent two types of aerosol infection;infection by large aerosol on the air current and infection by small floating aerosol diffusion in a room. They also showed the way of setting droplet prevention partitions, which do not block off ventilation based on this investigation's results.
ABSTRACT
Appropriate knowledge and actions of residents in housing are expected to reduce health effects, defined as "living literacy." With the spread of COVID-19 and the diversification of lifestyles, a quantitative evaluation of a comprehensive model that includes living literacy in the housing environment is required. In this study, the author conducted two web-based surveys of approximately 2000 different households in Japan during the summer of 2020 and winter of 2021, and a statistical analysis based on the survey results. As a result, ventilation by opening windows was observed as a new resident behavior trend under COVID-19. In addition, structural equation modeling using the survey samples confirmed the certain relationship between living literacy and subjective evaluation of the indoor environment and health effects in both periods.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Health Literacy , Life Style , Models, Theoretical , Humans , Air Pollution, Indoor/analysis , COVID-19/epidemiology , Housing , Japan/epidemiology , Surveys and Questionnaires , Behavior , SeasonsABSTRACT
Information on air-conditioning and ventilation has been continuously disseminated in response to the Japanese Government's announcement of the need for appropriate ventilation measures against the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and the issuing of an emergency presidential discourse by the presidents of Engineering Societies. In this paper, we add to the information the latest knowledge on the behavior of SARS-CoV-2 in air, describe its diffusion characteristics in the built environment, and summarize the effects of temperature and humidity on the virus. Then we recommend varying approaches of air-conditioning control for facility type.