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Calls for post-Covid revolution in building air quality
By David Shukman
image copyrightGetty Images
Dozens of the world s top experts in how diseases spread have called for big improvements to the air in buildings.
They say current rules on ventilation are failing to stop infections, including Covid-19.
The problem is likened to the health crisis caused by contaminated water in Britain s cities in the 1800s.
The appeal comes amid growing evidence that the coronavirus is often transmitted via infectious aerosols in crowded indoor spaces.
Writing in the journal Science, the scientists and engineers say that while governments have regulations on the safety of food, sanitation and drinking water, there s far less emphasis on pathogens in the air.
Brazil’s President Suggests CCP Virus Created to Wage ‘Biological Warfare’
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro floated the idea that the CCP virus may have been a lab product created to carry out “biological warfare.”
“It’s a new virus. Nobody knows whether it was born in a laboratory or because a human ate some animal they shouldn’t have,” he said in a speech on May 5.
“But the military knows all about chemical, biological and radiological warfare. Could we be fighting a new war? I wonder. Which country’s GDP has grown the most?”
Bolsonaro, a frequent China critic, did not name any specific countries in his comments. But China was the only major world economy that saw any economic growth during 2020 as other industrial powers struggled with lockdowns and virus resurgence.
P. LOWRY/MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN
Over the past decade, botanist Pete Lowry has noticed a worrying trend in his field. An expert on the
Sciodaphyllum (formerly
Schefflera) genus of neotropical plants, he used to have a relatively easy time doing fieldwork abroad, he says. Now, however, he and his colleagues at the Missouri Botanical Garden face a mountain of logistical hurdles to gain permission to work in the various countries they want to visit, let alone bring samples back home with them.
For example, although one of Lowry’s study species,
S. patulum, extends from southeastern Ecuador through Peru and into Bolivia, he says he often has to limit the scope of his research to a single country to avoid engaging in the time-consuming and costly process of obtaining permits in each. It’s frustrating, he says, because “with the exception of islands and locally endemic species, species don’t know border limits. [They] occur wherever they occur.”