WHY NOW?
With infectious diseases emerging and re-emerging at an unprecedented rate, the recent outbreaks of SARS, Zika, H1N1 and, of course COVID-19 and its many variants, the continued rise in global temperatures and the expected corresponding increase in HVAC system use, as well as new scientific discoveries related to the deadly effects of aerosol infectious disease transmission, microbial contamination in and from HVAC systems has not only become a significant concern and focus of the HVAC industry, but also the EPA, WHO, the CDC, and healthcare leaders worldwide.
While far from a new phenomenon, due to a number of factors, including those that follow, Indoor Air Pollution has become a more and more urgent topic in the scientific and medical communities over the past year or two, and a growing concern to the general public.
In the first half of 2022 alone, the U.S. has experienced out breaks of Influenza A (H3N2); Eastern Equine Encephalitis; Monkey Pox; Acute, Severe Hepatitis; Measles; Legionnaires' Disease and E.coli.
Deforestation, both from the ever- increasing incidence of wildfires and man's continued zeal for cultivating undeveloped land.
The release of known and unknown pathogens and diseases, long frozen in the permafrost that covers 11% of our planet's surface, but is now thawing.
Lifestyle changes have resulted in the average American now spending approximately 90% of their time indoors.
Indoor air quality is now, on average, about TEN TIMES worse than outdoor air quality.
Rampant increases in "zoonoses," or infectious diseases that have jumped from animals to humans due to the continued erosion of wild spaces. An incredible 75% of all emerging infectious diseases now come from wildlife.
More energy efficient construction, which has led to "tighter," better insulated buildings, but also limited the natural exchange of outdoor air, resulting in excessive trapped humidity, and microbial contamination becoming a major source of reduced indoor air quality.
The continuous emergence of more, and more resistant, new strains of viruses and other pathogens that are contagious enough to be spread via microscopic airborne droplets, and hearty enough to survive in the air for many hours, and on surfaces for up to six months.
Humanity's ever-growing passion for travel, enabling the rapid spread of contagions.
The depletion of stratospheric ozone and increases in ground-level ozone.
Soaring, historic increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
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