1/ I wear an N95 at locations outside of my home. I wear it to the grocery store, pharmacy and my doctor's office.
It's comfortable, doesn't hurt my ears, doesn't fog up my glasses, and easy to breathe through. I can wear it all day, anywhere. EXCEPT at the hospital!
2/ Many health care facilities require visitors to REMOVE their superior respiratory PPE and don a basic surgical ASTM Level 1 mask.
This practice must stop.
3/ Here's my friend Annamaria's experience this past Thursday when she went to @NGHSimcoe for her second vaccination, shared with her permission👇
4/ @NGHSimcoe's current policy for visitors (and presumably all staff) is "must wear appropriate PPE including the hospital-issued mask".
NEWSFLASH: The hospital-issued mask is NOT appropriate respiratory protection. It's designed to protect against sprays of bodily fluids.
5/ The greatest potential route of COVID-19 infection is inhalation of small floating droplet nuclei (bioaerosol) containing SARS-CoV-2, produced when a person coughs, talks, or merely breathes.
7/ Many people at greater risk from the impacts of a COVID-19 infection have been advised by their physician to wear improved respiratory protection. Downgrading to a surgical mask goes against this advice, and the precautionary principle. It's asinine.
8/ Hospital IPAC:
🤔If I wear safety boots, will you require me to remove them and don hospital-provided clown shoes? No.
If you're actually worried about contamination you'd follow Ontario's COVID-19 workplace guidance and provide boot sanitizing trays or shoe covers.
9/ So, at the VERY MINIMUM please alter your policy to allow people to keep their own PPE and apply the surgical mask over top.
10/ Look to others:
1️⃣Trillium Health Partners changed their policy in 24 hours👇
12/ 3️⃣@NGHSimcoe will you be next? I have my vaccination appointment on Tuesday 🎉🥳🎉 and on the advice of my physician I will be wearing a fit-tested N95 and will NOT remove it for inferior protection indoors. Please alter your masking policy like THP & UHN did.
13/ ⚠Attention ALL EMPLOYERS:
Please allow your employees up their mask game. Ideally, provide it for them. Essential workers deserve it. Your continued business operation without ill workers justifies it.
14/ UP YOUR MASK GAME with Masks4Canada's Advanced Mask Purchase List and Tip Sheet. There is ample local supply of respirators. Use them.
Let's push through until we're all vaccinated. It's not much longer. docs.google.com/document/d/1ma…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Vancouver Coastal Health has released an updated Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality resource for Schools and Childcare Facilities () but their CO2 page needs some edits. vch.ca/en/document-li…
Vancouver Coastal Health "CO2 concentrations do not indicate a risk of infectious disease transmission in a space". No.
ASHRAE's position document on indoor CO2 says "higher CO2 conc correspond to lower ventilation and potentially increased risk of airborne transmission"
Vancouver Coastal Health "Note that health effects from CO2 occur at levels above 5000 ppm". Did WorkSafeBC interfere? Because that's contradicted by your Health Canada reference in the sentence immediately before it.
This document has been a long time coming. As described by @jljcolorado, Lidia Morawska, co-chair of the group that published the new WHO airborne model, was previously cut off by John Conly when making the case that #COVIDisAirborne to WHO. /3
Air purifier manufacturers say HEPA should always be the filter of choice, and their product's proprietary filter delivers. Which HEPA? ISO 35H at 99.95% or ISO 40H at 99.99%? Why not ISO 50U? That's 10x better at 99.999%. Why stop there? Go for ISO 70U at 99.99999%! /1
The answer is, single-pass filtration efficiency DOESN'T MATTER except in specific cases like Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPR), clean rooms, operating theaters, or nuclear laboratory exhaust—HEPA's original purpose. /2
For portable/in-room air cleaners, all that matters is the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) for a target particle size and type, within acceptable for sound power and frequency characteristics for the people in the room. /3
Four years into this and we can't keep duct-taping in-room filter solutions for clean air. It's just filter(s) and a fan. We need open-source, optimized design, certifiable product, efficient, repairable using commodity filters and commodity components. /1
We need air cleaners assembled and distributed by not-for-profit community-based social enterprise. No more lock-in to proprietary filters. Verified replacement commodity filtration performance for safety. /2
Low income with donated CR boxes will pay over time in electrical costs for the duct-taped solution for clean air.
Power utilization for Smoke CADR, same filters:
Conventional CR Box: 4 CADR/W. (77 W)
PC fan array air cleaner: 24 CADR/W. (8 W)
/3
1/ Levoit Core 400S versus Austin Air HM400 in a challenge to see which portable air cleaner removes submicron salt particle aerosols the fastest! Which do you think will win, and by how much? Poll in next tweet below...
2/ Which has a higher CADR (Clean Air Delivery Rate):
Levoit Core 400S, or Austin Air HM400?
See if you can find the manufacturer's claims for both, and then come back and vote:
[sarcasm] Not only is the Austin Air bigger and far heavier, it also draws way more power, is much louder, and more expensive. It couldn't possibly be *worse* than the Levoit, right? Right?