I love having a CO2 monitor to check the air quality in indoor spaces (my grocery store, my dentist’s office, etc.). I’m relieved when stores have good ratings, and I’ve convinced my dentist’s office to open windows to get the rating down to an acceptable level.

I use an #Aranet4 and thanks to @brainwane I learned they are on sale (at quite a discount) until Sept. 17. Highly recommended for the Covid-cautious who don’t have one already.

US Customers: https://shop.aranet.com/north-america/product/aranet4-home

#Covid #Cvoid19 #CovidIsNotover

#COVID19 #COVID cautious folks:

Carrying a CO2 monitor helps me check how safe the #AirQuality in a space is, and lower or raise my cautions accordingly. (Details: https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2023/my-current-covid-risk-approach/#ventilation ) Super useful.

I use and like the #Aranet4 #CO2 monitor. The #Aranet 4 is usually USD$249. It's on sale, direct from the manufacturer, till September 17, for $184.35, with free shipping in the US.

https://shop.aranet.com/north-america/product/aranet4-home

Or from Amazon for $197: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B07YY7BH2W/ref=nosim/0sil8 (Might be today only - Sept 7th.)

#Aranet4 CO2 monitor is $169 on Amazon right now!

https://www.amazon.com/Aranet4-Home-Temperature-Ink-Configuration/dp/B07YY7BH2W/

#CovidIsNotOver #COVIDisAirborne #COVIDcautious #covidconscious #covidaware #stillCOVIDing #ZeroCovid

Full readings from my time at the PCP this week. Not good - especially in a known COVID surge in MA - better ventilation, HEPA (merv 13) filters, and masking would go miles in protecting your staff and patients from acquired illness at your facilities.

**Outdoors, CO2 levels are 400-475 ppm. Above 800 ppm, at least 1% of your air is “shared” - meaning you're breathing in exhaled air. CO2 levels above 1,000 ppm is a sign there are elevated risks of potential virus transmission for everyone in the room. Spaces with multiple occupants should aim for 600 ppm to prevent cross-infection.

#covidisnotover #maskup #openawindow
#indoorairquality #covidco2 #cleanair #cleanairnow #cleanairforall #cleanaireverywhere
#airborneaware #airquality
#longcovid #aranet4 #aranet #covid19 #ventilation #southshorema #plymouthma #massachusetts

There are some places I may eventually feel comfortable dining indoors at when we have some more clarity with the direction that #Covid is heading long term and with therapies if you should be one of the unlucky ones.

I spent some time inside a variety of food/retail businesses this week. Here's an #Aranet4 #CO2 reading from a bakery where the owner is very Covid conscious. She keeps it very well ventilated. This small bakery cafe was at full capacity with 15+ people. The CO2 reading was 471ppm against an outside reading of 415ppm.

Front door open w/commercial kitchen in the back pumping air. That it was windy also helped.

Also took a reading standing deep in a packed small Thai restaurant w/Covid aware owner. 550ppm, door open + all windows cracked 25% open.

I still have yet to measure a restaurant exceeding 800ppm which roughly equates to 1% of re-breathed air per breath.

#CovidisAirborne

@sundogplanets Yes! I #knit this from scrap wool yarn, then felted it in the washer and sewed the sides. The elastic and button closure allows surprisingly good air flow; I usually put the #aranet4 in so that the vents are towards the top.

Want to see what a CO2 chart for a spacious office meeting with about 12 people for one hour looks like? We start with excellent air quality at 9am at 500ppm of CO2.

After one hour in a poorly ventilated space, the CO2 readings are 1720ppm.

Yikes! This means everyone is breathing quite a bit out of each other's lungs. If you're only going to wear a mask in the riskiest situations, this might be one of them.

Keep in mind that just having high CO2 concentrations doesn't mean much unless someone is contagious in the room, but if there was someone contagious that day, lots of people in that meeting would have gotten whatever was being passed into the air be it Covid, flu, RSV, or a cold.

Still 12 random people in a room isn't a giant risk, but I'm seeing photos of 30 people sitting around tables all the time.

#aranet4 #co2 #covid

I'm making some blunt assumptions about what these readings mean. From what I've been gathering from scientists posting about air quality readings, 400ppm is a baseline and every +200ppm gets you from excellent to good to fair to unhealthy.

Most people seem to be suggesting 800 and below as the line to start exercising greater caution if you're trying to avoid infection.

But keep in mind that's based on 400ppm as the baseline. This is the baseline for me on one of the days. It's 470ppm outdoors. This could be because my unit's calibrated badly or more likely because I live in an urban area and I'm at a mall near very busy roads and there's a lot of extra ambient CO2 so my cutoff lines would be 670 and below (excellent), 870 and below (good), 1070 and below (fair).

#aranet4 #co2 #covid

One surprising finding I'm having from taking CO2 readings in various places is that I'm consistently getting readings between 700 and 800 ppm at supermarkets.

I mostly took readings at peak hours. I'll need to go back at off peak times to see how much the readings change. I was really amazed at how "not terrible" the reading at Trader Joe's was.

Picture 1: Trader Joes at noon on a Saturday. It is packed. It was a total surprise to see CO2 readings between 700 and 800ppm! (Fair)

Picture 2: Smart and Final, a mostly California-bases grocery outlet selling a mix of regular groceries and bulk package items with a reading of 714ppm. (Good)

Picture 3: Walgreens Pharmacy, at off peak hours. 529ppm. This is very good, but hard to believe. I'll have to go take this again.

Picture 4: Nob Hill Foods, a small grocery chain in Northern California. 726ppm. Good-Fair.

#aranet4 #co2 #covid #traderjoe

I'm realizing a lot of people are still thinking about Covid as a wash your hands and socially distance kind of thing.

Please throw that out. Your chances of getting Covid from touching something is near zero and we're far more likely to catch it from someone you can't even see because it can stay in the air for a long time, drift long distances, and remain potent long after the contagious person is gone (as much as 2 hours).

This is why improving ventilation is one of the most important things you can do to reduce risks of infection for yourself and people around you.

I've been taking CO2 to estimate indoor air quality. Based on those, the places I wouldn't want to be unmasked would be: house gatherings, offices, meeting rooms, conventions, public transit, a plane, funerals.

Places that may not be as risky as originally believed are: supermarkets, pharmacies, and restaurants.

#Covid #CO2 #Aranet4

@sundogplanets I like #Aranet4 ; I found out about it from @jljcolorado birdsite account. I don’t use instead of masks, distance, but to assess the safety of a space. Frankly, I had hoped the institutional versions of these would have been installed along with proper ventilation systems, but that’s just for privileged people. There’s a NYTimes article about this.

I just got an #Aranet4 CO2 monitor to get a better sense of respiratory infection risks. I’m still masking because my wife has an immune condition and she’s already had #MECFS for almost 20 years. I know very well what life with Long-Covid could be like.

I do hope to lose the mask eventually, or at least partially. I’m carrying this thing around to prepare for that day by getting a better sense of what places I go are riskiest.

I was surprised the reading at my optometrist’s clinic was a consistent 1100-1200 ppm. The whole 45 minutes I was there it stayed in this range even though the number of people inside constantly shifted.

The place *feels* fairly well ventilated but is well behind some restaurants I’ve sat in waiting for take out orders. I even stood directly in an area with airflow you could feel to see if it would drop. That airflow must have had lots of recirculation.

It’s still early in my experiment, but so far the risk graph of my world hasn’t matched my assumptions.

#covidisairborne

Taking my very first pandemic-era flights. ✈😬

Got my trusty #Aranet4 for #CO2Monitoring. With these readings, I feel confident & validated in my #mask. 😷

U.S. domestic flight had masking rate of ~10%, more than expected!

International flight to Asia had even more masks, but still a small minority. Almost all flight attendants #MaskedUp.

Lots of #masking at Asian airport. Maybe 1/2 of staff in masks, minority of travelers. Overall still a minority, but significant & visible!

#CovidIsNotOver

#Aranet4 has dropped to £169 in the UK. Lowest I’ve seen them at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YY7BH2W

Den #Aranet4 CO2 Monitor gibt es derzeit für ca. 185 Euro: https://shop.aranet.com/europe/product/aranet4-home

#CleanAir #CovidIsNotOver

As much as it hurts me to say it, my beloved #shinkansen is letting the team down a bit with their air quality.

Can't see any obvious ventilation system but I feel a light breeze so it must exist.

Masking a bit thwarted by the custom of eating a bento+beer on the train.

#Aranet4 #CovidIsNotOver

Pretty good co2 saturation for a moderately crowded subway in Osaka.

There's a pretty powerful HVAC system on the ceiling. I don't know whether it has proper HEPA filters too.

Unfortunately, masking rates seem to be dropping a bit although still at about 70%.

Seems to be the people with the worst coughs that don't feel they need a mask though.

#CovidIsNotOver #Aranet4

@downey @alienghic @buo I just found the #Aranet4 product. I guess I could add a LoRa transmitter to my $17 Pocket CO2 monitor to compete with it.

This bus in Tokyo is worse than the plane.
At least about 60% of people are masking but jeez...

#CovidIsNotOver #co2 #Aranet4

Health Canada is developing guidance on clean indoor air. You can comment up until April 10th. Please provide feedback!!! Clean indoor air is really the way out of this (and the next) #pandemic.
#cleanair #hepa #ventilate #COVID #Aranet4

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/programs/consultation-draft-guidance-improving-indoor-air-quality-office-buildings.html?fbclid=IwAR3L5gXdsyjdhgStXnDgIDiewot68R3MfPUWhBnRBs0mo_neju2Vy-xFg4s