Keeping indoor humidity levels at a 'sweetspot' may reduce the spread of COVID-19 MIT RSocPublishing
is the amount of moisture in the air compared to the total moisture the air can hold at a given temperature before saturating and forming condensation., the MIT team reports that maintaining an indoorbetween 40 and 60% is associated with relatively lower rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths, while indoor conditions outside this range are associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes.
Verheyen and Bourouiba examined whether COVID-19 is influenced instead by indoor—rather than outdoor—conditions, and specifically, relative humidity. After all, they note that most societies spend more than 90% of their time indoors, where the majority of viral transmission has been shown to occur. What's more, indoor conditions can be quite different from outdoor conditions as a result of climate control systems, such as heaters that significantly dry out indoor air.
For each day that COVID-19 data was available, they used meteorological data to calculate a country's outdoor relative humidity. They then estimated the average indoor relative humidity, based on outdoor relative humidity and guidelines on temperature ranges for human comfort. For instance, guidelines report that humans are comfortable between 66 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit indoors. They also assumed that on average, most populations have the means toindoor spaces to comfortable temperatures.
For countries in the tropics, relative humidity was about the same indoors and outdoors throughout the year, with a gradual rise indoors during the region's summer season, when high outdoor humidity likely raised the indoor relative humidity over 60%. They found this rise mirrored the gradual increase in COVID-19 deaths in the tropics.
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