Thread by @CovidPledge

Covid shows how good ventilation benefits employers, employees & customers alike. Yesterday we outlined the reasons. Today, let’s delve more deeply into one of the lesser known – & most compelling – reasons: stuffiness makes you stupid! #CovidPledgeAction #CovidSafetyPledge (1/9)

First. Poor ventilation reduces how much you get done. A study in the journal Indoor Air (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15330777/ ) concludes that it has been shown ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that poor indoor air quality decreases productivity by as much as 9%! #CovidSafetyPledge (2/9).

That led an article in The Business Journals from 2019 (before Covid) to offer the following advice: Want your people to be more productive? Here’s a novel idea: open the window. That’s right. Give them some fresh air. #CovidPledgeAction #CovidSafetyPledge (3/9)

Second. Poor ventilation ruins your concentration. High CO2 levels in a classroom mean that “students are likely to be less attentive and to concentrate less well on what the teacher is saying” (tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108… ) #CovidPledgeAction #CovidSafetyPledge (4/9)

Third. Poor ventilations undermines your quality of thought. One review (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16420495/) found an increase in cognitive performance in nearly all the studies it looked at, typically of 1-3% per 10 litre per second improvement in ventilation rate #CovidSafetyPledge (5/9)

What is more, the impact of poor ventilation is greater for more complex tasks: “at 1400 ppm, CO2 concentrations may cut our basic decision-making ability by 25 percent, and complex strategic thinking by around 50 percent” (news-medical.net/news/20200421/… ) #CovidSafetyPledge (6/9)

This is bad enough anywhere. It is particularly serious in schools and universities. How can we tolerate learning environments which impair the learning of our young people? #CovidPledgeAction #CovidSafetyPledge (7/9)

And finally, lest anyone say ‘we can’t afford it’, a 2017 piece (hbr.org/2017/03/resear…) concluded that  the productivity benefits from doubling the ventilation rates (even before taking improved quality into account) are $6,500 per person per year #CovidSafetyPledge (8/9)

So even the business community is crying out ‘it’s plain common sense to have good ventilation’. Which is why it also makes sense for employers to sign up to the Covid Safety Pledge - to find out how, visit covidpledge.uk!
#CovidSafetyPledge #CovidPledgeAction (9/9)