The Center for Active Design, creator of the Fitwel building performance standard, put out a paper last week addressing the question of what can we do in our buildings to fight the transmission of viruses, including the coronavirus. While building science strategies may never take the place of essential individual behavior, like social distancing, hand-washing, and limited touching of our faces, this paper is backed up with data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
5 Ways to Optimize Buildings for COVID-19 Prevention is a good read for building owners and sustainability practitioners looking for specific preventative steps to reduce the risk of infection within buildings.
Also last week, RESET Air reminded building owners that Data Provides an Anchor in a Wave of Unknowns and should also be on your short list of COVID-19 + Building Performance reading list.
RESET Air is a global thought leader in the importance of measuring and monitoring indoor air quality to improve building occupants' knowledge of the air quality inside the buildings in which they live, work and learn. In these linked articles, they reinforce the importance of using reliable data to empower project teams and building occupants to require better indoor air quality from their buildings. The study of the relationship between buildings and their occupants is evolving rapidly. It is most obvious when you review data showing the direct connection between a building's indoor air quality and building occupant's health and performance.