Could an Air Sampler Help Detect Airbone Coronavirus Particles? - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/health/coronavirus-testing-airborne-aerosol-indoor.html?smid=em-share
A series of studies — performed in an enclosed box, a 9-by-14-foot room and the hospital rooms of Covid-19 patients — suggested that the AerosolSense sampler could capture the coronavirus even when present at low levels, said Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, who conducted the research and directs the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon.
“We’re confident that this is sensitive enough to use in real-world environments with Covid-positive individuals,” he said.
(The research, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal, was funded by Thermo Fisher Scientific.)
Thermo Fisher Scientific also piloted the samplers in a Covid-19 field hospital in Worcester, Mass. The hospital deployed the devices in patient care areas, where the virus was expected to be found, and in staff break rooms, where it was not.
“Our cold zones were indeed cold,” said Dr. John Broach, an emergency physician at UMass Memorial Medical Center and the medical director of the field hospital. “And our hot zone had heavy contamination, which was expected.”
Thermo Fisher Scientific, which will focus on hospitals in the first phase of its rollout, says other health care facilities could use the samplers to make sure that their Covid protocols are working — and that the virus is not making its way out of patient rooms.
