Air contamination of households versus hospital inpatient rooms (SARS-CoV-2)
In this study, household samples were 8 times more likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 than inpatient samples. Inpatient rooms only tested positive when the volume of air sampled was quadrupled and the distance between air samplers and patients was minimal. Thus, these positive results may represent contaminated respiratory droplets being expelled by patients rather than actual air contamination. Given that room ventilation (ie, air changes per hour) was the main difference between these settings, our findings may suggest that the degree of ventilation in a room is more important in determining the degree of air contamination than the acuity of illness that a SARS-CoV-2 patient may be experiencing.
