Coronavirus Technology Solutions
June 19, 2020
June
18, 2020 Mask Policy Webinar is
the Basis for Future Analysis
and Discussion
Mogul has Unique Face Mask Media
Fibertex has Nanofiber Media for
Masks and Respirators
Two New Community
Classifications for Face Masks
The World is in a New and
Dangerous Phase
Hotels are Investing in Air
Filters and Sanitizers
Air Conditioning in the South
will Present a Real Problem
__________________________________________________________________________
June
18, 2020 Mask Policy Webinar is
the Basis for Future Analysis
and Discussion
This webinar was originally
slated as three five-minute
speeches and then a one-hour
discussion based on a slide deck
covering the mask selection
issues. Due to the high quality
and interest in the three
presentations the discussion
continued for more than one
hour. Bob McIlvaine then
provided a 30-minute overview in
a separate recording.
To
view the three speeches and
discussions click here: https://youtu.be/lwVpSB7mkHk
The agenda is displayed at:
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/images/2020-06-18_Webinar/Agenda_for_Mask_Policy_06-18-20.pdf
The presenter power points are
also posted.
Wendover Brown Vogmask:
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/images/2020-06-18_Webinar/Covid-19_Tech_Solutions_PPT_Vogmask.pdf
Jerry Fan, Mogul:
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/images/2020-06-18_Webinar/Madaline-face_mask_application.pdf
Jayesh Doshi, eSpin:
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/images/2020-06-18_Webinar/Mcilvaine_MASK%20Webinar_06182020Reduced.pdf The overview by Bob McIlvaine can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/t38NEZteqgM
His power points can be viewed
here:
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/images/2020-06-18_Webinar/Mask_Webinar_06-18-20.pdf
A background analysis reviewing
all the factors is found at Mask
Policy Review
The
overview covered all the factors
which determine the value of
wearing masks and why there is a
world of difference in mask and
media design. There is mounting
evidence that high efficiency
masks are just as important as
social distancing. There is a
consensus starting to build
around mask selection based on
virus, wearer, environment
factors. This will result in a
range of masks with efficiencies
of 70, 90 and 95 percent.
McIlvaine is continually
evaluating the options in the
daily alerts and will conduct a
series of future webinars to
discuss and debate the options.
Mogul has Unique Face Mask Media
Mogul is in the top 40 worldwide
non-woven manufacturers. In the
webinar yesterday Jerry Fan
presented data on Madaline which
is uniquely suited for face
masks.
Madaline™ Unique Properties
•
Physical barrier blocks most
bacterial, allergens, and
bedding mite
– dense and
micropore structure
•
Breathable
– micro
channels allow
air and vapor
penetration
•
Moisture
management
– capillary effect instantly
transfers and absorbs water, sweat
and moisture
•
Thermal
Insulation – dense and
microspore structure
resists
wind
and reduces heat transfer
•
Quick
drying
– huge
internal surface area
promotes
drying
process,
2 – 3 times
faster than terry cotton
•
Softness – microfilament nature
•
Lint free – composed of endless
microfilament
•
Like traditional woven fabric –
similar comfort hand feel and
easy to convert into finished
products
•
Durable and machine washable
•
Good 3D shape memory
Recently the Madaline™
microfilament cloth has been
selected by the French
government and recommended for
making reusable and washable
face masks for the general
public.
Per the General Directorate of
Armament (DGA), 100 gsm Madaline™
microfilament cloth (after 10
machine-washing cycles) has an
air permeability and a
performance in terms of
protection efficiency against
aerosols of 3 µm compatible with
use as a category 1 mask
(individual mask for use by
professionals in contact with
the public).
Jerry’s presentation was
recorded and linked above as is
the power point set
Fibertex has Nanofiber Media for
Masks and Respirators
Kari Luukkonen, Business
Development Director
participated in the webinar
yesterday and informed us of
some of their related
activities.
“We are selling quite a lot of
FFP2/N95 nano fibered layers
which can be used in respirators
together with outer and inner PP
spunbond layers.
Additionally, we now also have
FFP2 and FFP3 “single layer”
products requiring no additional
layers. These can be also used
as replaceable filter pieces in
reusable masks, like the fabric
masks where you have a pocket
for replaceable filter.
In addition to nanofiber layers
we also supply lot of moulding
layers for cup type masks based
on needlefelt and spun lace.
One new grade is 65 % bacterial
filtration efficiency washable
“civil mask” materials we
produce now in France.”
“Kari also told us about
important new standards
developments in Europe and
promised to send us the details
which he did along with this
message.
This was released just today,
outlines for EU new classes for
general public masks.
In a nutshell two new classes
introduced, 70 % and 90 %
efficiency classes against
3-micron particles, whereas
official surgical masks are on
95-98 % efficiency level of 3
micron aerosols, N95/FFP2
respirators over 99% efficiency
on same particle size like the
aerosol used for bacterial
filtration efficiency
determination”
Two New Community
Classifications for Face Masks
The European Committee for
Standardization has drafted
standards for two efficiency
levels for community masks. This
is an important initiative and
will help the public to
understand that there is a world
of difference in protection
provided by different media and
mask designs. Here is the
section on filtration
efficiency.
The full document can be viewed
at
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/images/2020-06-18_Webinar/CWA17553_2020.pdf
The World is in a New and
Dangerous Phase
The World Health Organization
warned Friday that “the world is
in a new and dangerous phase” as
the global pandemic accelerates.
The world recorded about 150,000
new cases on Thursday, the
largest rise yet in a single
day, according to the WHO.
Nearly half of these infections
were in the Americas, as new
cases continue to surge in the
United States, Brazil and across
Latin America.
More than 8.5 million
coronavirus cases and at least
454,000 deaths have
been reported worldwide.
As confirmed cases and
hospitalizations climb in the
U.S., new mask requirements are
prompting faceoffs between
officials who seek to require
face coverings and those,
particularly conservatives, who
oppose such measures. Several
studies this month support
wearing masks to curb
coronavirus transmission, and
the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention recommend their
use as a protective measure.
Brazil is expected to exceed 1
million coronavirus cases Friday
as the country continues to
battle the world’s
second-highest number of
confirmed infections, after the
United States.
Deaths officially related to
covid-19 are also quickly
approaching 50,000, Reuters
reported.
Brazil has averaged 1,000 deaths
and 25,000 new cases per day in
the past week.
Experts, however, caution that
the real number of infections
and fatalities due to the novel
coronavirus is likely far
higher.
“That number of 1 million is
much less than the real number
of people who have been
infected, because there is
underreporting of a magnitude of
five to ten times,” Alexandre
Naime Barbosa, a medical
professor at the São Paulo State
University, told Reuters. “The
true number is probably at least
3 million and could even be as
high as 10 million people.”
Elsewhere on the continent,
Guatemala’s president replaced
the country’s health minister on
Friday amid pressure over his
handling of the pandemic. Former
health minister Hugo Monroy had
faced accusations that he was
not spending enough to contain
the outbreak, the
Associated Press reported.
Doctors at public-health
facilities have resorted to
protests over allegedly unpaid
salaries, while under-resourced
hospitals have struggled to care
for rising caseloads of
patients, according to the AP.
Guatemala has reported roughly
11,800 cases and 450 deaths,
according to a tracker
maintained by researchers at
Johns Hopkins University.
Peru, which this week overtook
Italy as seventh in the world
for confirmed cases, is likely
heading toward its worst
economic decline in a century,
the country’s Central Bank
reported Friday, according
to Reuters.
Peru has more than 240,000
confirmed cases — Latin
America’s second highest — and
has had over 7,000 covid-19
related deaths
Hotels are Investing in Air
Filters and Sanitizers
Among the hotels most firmly
doubling down on high-tech
cleaning gadgets is the Carillon
Miami Wellness Resort,
whose apartment-like
accommodations in South Beach,
Fla., reopen July 1. The
property is using a device
called the Curis fogger, which
vaguely resembles the
Ghostbusters Proton Pack, to
decontaminate air and hard
surfaces with a hydrogen
solution and spray hose. In the
spa, a UV-C Sanitizer zaps 99.9%
of bacteria on objects and
surfaces.
Throughout public spaces, it’s
also deploying hospital-grade
electrostatic sprayers that are
capable of decontaminating
18,000 square feet per hour.
Likewise, 1950s Scottsdale,
Ariz., icon Hotel
Valley Ho has
ordered three of the devices for
its proper
These sprayers are also the main
weapon of choice for the
recently reopened, 4,029-room Venetian
Resort in
Las Vegas, where the typically
buzzing lobby is now sterile as
an operating room. Greeting
guests and team members at each
entry are security officers with
temperature-taking thermal
scanners. UV lights
decontaminate shipments to the
mailroom, receiving docks, and
even bellhop carts. And around
the first floor’s many dining
and retail venues, you’ll spot
almost a thousand physical
distancing markers to encourage
guests to space themselves apart
in line. The hotel has branded
its efforts as “Venetian
Clean.”
Hotels such as the
Venetian—which can have
thousands of guests under one
roof— are generally not designed
for social distancing. But
simple solutions can go a long
way. In Amagansett, N.Y., guests
can request to
use the Roundtree’s
Upang UV sterilizer machines at
the hotel’s Main House and
Breakfast Shed. Typically used
to sterilize such items as baby
bottles, they look like shrunken
Smeg refrigerators that
disinfect small objects,
including cell phones and car
keys, by exposing them to UV-C
light for 10-minute cycles.
In many cases, independent
hotels can be nimbler than big,
bureaucratic brands because they
don’t have to worry about
scaling costs or approval
processes for every proposed
tweak. Still, some global
hospitality companies have the
advantage of existing technology
on their side.
Yotel,
for instance, is a tech-focused
hotel brand with 14 locations
from Singapore to San Francisco.
It has used robots in the past
to fulfill simple housekeeping
requests. Now those Jetsons-inspired
butlers are being deployed to
deliver luggage to guest rooms,
too, in order to eliminate an
additional touchpoint.
Other hotels are investing in
less-intrusive machines,
including Molekule air
purifiers, which claim to
destroy up to 99.99% of
SARS-CoV-2 proxy virus
concentration in two hours. As
of June 1, guests can find them
in all rooms and suites at Rhode
Island’s Ocean
House and Weekapaug
Inn.
Then there’s Asheville, N.C.’s Kimpton
Hotel Arras,
which is rewiring old
technology—elevators—to whisk
guests directly to their floor
without stopping to pick up
others along the way.
Restaurants account for roughly
25% of a hotel’s total revenue,
according to real estate
investment firm CBRE. To operate
dining rooms safely, many
properties are turning to
reduced capacities: At the Inn
at Little Washington, outside
the nation’s capital, every
other table at the
three-Michelin-starred
restaurant is populated by
mannequins.
But for a majority of hotels and
travelers, dining will boil down
to a new form of room service in
which food carts are left
outside guest rooms and
retrieved by the customers,
rather than being brought inside
and unveiled by staff. At Nayara,
a resort in Costa Rica’s Arenal
Volcano National Park, the golf
carts used for room service
deliveries are fully sanitized
before each contact-less
drop-off.
Others are going further in the
need to eliminate as many touch
points as possible when serving
food. Before Covid-19,
the Peninsula Hotels
led the way with digital in-room
systems that let you control
your room’s temperature, lights,
or order slices of cheesecake at
2 a.m. with the tap of an iPad
button. Now the company is
moving those services onto
guests’ phones with PenChat, a
24/7 e-concierge service
accessible via WhatsApp,
Facebook Messenger, and WeChat.
At Four Seasons Hotels &
Resorts,
the pandemic has sped up
projects already in the works.
Its new Four Seasons App, now
available across the 116 hotels,
recently debuted with text-based
conversations with staffers (not
bots) in more than 100
languages. It also puts any
piece of information normally
printed on paper—spa services,
local activities, menus, and
more—into guests’ palms,
digitally.
At Marriott, menus have been
made available in the Bonvoy app
at 230 of the company’s 7,300
hotels across 30 hotel
brands—Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis,
Editions, and W Hotels among
them. According to John Wolf,
the company’s vice president of
global communications, Marriott
is also following guidelines
from the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
and the World Health
Organization by deploying
hospital-grade disinfectants for
high-touch surface areas
(including TV remotes, door
handles, and bathroom surfaces),
placing disinfecting wipes in
guest rooms, and providing
personal protection equipment
(PPE) at every level. The
timeline for all this, Wolf
says, is “over the next few
months.”
For independent hotels, QR Codes
are an easy alternative to
developing an app: At the Wauwinet resort
in Nantucket, Mass., guests can
use them to pull up the menu and
order from Topper’s, the on-site
seafood restaurant.
While some travelers have
adopted a wait-and-see
philosophy before booking
post-pandemic trips, others are
sufficiently drawn by the
promise of new technology and
stricter protocols.
Ireland’s Dromoland Castle also
has loyalists ready to return.
The retreat reopens on July 3rd
with socially distanced dining
and PPE for both staff and
guests, which has longtime
guests such as Payne plotting a
jaunt there later this summer.
“The castle recently emailed us
with their updated safety
protocols, and we suddenly felt
like it would be OK to book a
trip,” Payne says.
Whereas people are outside in
the North they are in air
conditioned spaces in Arizona.
This is what Tree Hugger
has labeled a ‘nightmare
scenario”
The Federation of European
Heating, Ventilation and Air
Conditioning Associations
(REHVA) in Europe had warned
that the coronavirus could stay
airborne for some time, and
travel long distances. Architect
Justin Bere noted that "it
recommends avoiding central
recirculation during SARS CoV-2
episodes and closing the
recirculation dampers, even if
there are return air filters. As
the REHVA guidance says, these
don’t normally filter out
viruses." Bere explained:
Recent research indicates that
large droplets from sneezing can
travel much further than 2
meters, even if there are no air
movements. Small particles (<5
microns), generated by coughing
and sneezing, may stay airborne
for hours according to the REHVA
guidance and can travel long
distances. A Coronavirus
particle is only 0.8 to 0.16
microns diameter so there could
be many virus particles in a
5-micron droplet floating around
in the air.
They have been studying the
problem in Canada too. Professor
Brian Fleck told
the National Post that
"this has been on people’s radar
for quite a while. Somebody on a
different floor sneezes ...The
particle can stay airborne long
enough to go all the way through
the system and then pop out in
somebody else’s office."
There are various ways that the
risk can be lessened, including
use of filters that catch a
greater number of those
particles, and drawing more
fresh air into a system... But
each of those changes carries a
cost. Adding more fresh air can
require additional heat or air
conditioning. Heavier filters
means more energy is needed to
push the air through them.
But
it doesn't get as hot in Canada
as it does in Arizona. Engineer
and Professor Ted Kesik told
TreeHugger that "we shall be
greatly challenged retrofitting
our existing buildings to
eliminate dilution ventilation
systems." This is especially a
challenge in the heat of a
southern summer, where the
difference between inside and
outside air can be 40°F in
Arizona or Texas. In the
Southeast, there is also a lot
of humidity with the heat.
That's why the air is
recirculated; the amount of
energy needed to condition a
mall's worth of outside air
would be ridiculously high.
ASHRAE, the American Society of
Heating, Refrigerating, and
Air-Conditioning Engineers, had
a look at the issue of the
coronavirus and issued
a statement in late April:
Transmission of SARS-CoV-2
through the air is sufficiently
likely that airborne exposure to
the virus should be controlled.
Changes to building operations,
including the operation of
heating, ventilating, and
air-conditioning systems, can
reduce airborne exposures.
They issued technical guidelines
in a position
document on infectious aerosols:
Infectious aerosols can be
disseminated through buildings
by pathways that include air
distribution systems and
interzone airflows. Various
strategies have been found to be
effective at controlling
transmission, including
optimized airflow patterns,
directional airflow, zone
pressurization, dilution
ventilation, in-room
air-cleaning systems, general
exhaust ventilation,
personalized ventilation, local
exhaust ventilation at the
source, central system
filtration, UVGI, and
controlling indoor temperature
and relative humidity. Design
engineers can make an essential
contribution to reducing
infectious aerosol transmission
through the application of these
strategies.
That's fine, the engineers know
what to do with new buildings.
But what about existing ones?
Here, they make some
recommendations,
Non-healthcare buildings should
have a plan for an emergency
response. The following
modifications to building HVAC
system operation should be
considered:
In summary a building in Arizona
will be well served to install
efficient and robust air
filtering systems rather than
try to bring in lots of outside
air. |