Using CO2 Monitors to Detect COVID and Other Airborne Illnesses

With the COVID pandemic, we’ve learned the importance of air ventilation when it comes to risks of airborne illnesses, which includes the common flu and cold that surge throughout the year. Understanding CO2 concentration via a CO2 air quality monitoring device is essential here to detect when there’s a potential build-up in the natural byproduct, meaning a lack of ventilation and therefore, a higher concentration of viruses and other airborne illnesses that may circulate a room. 

Sowoon Park and Doosom Song in their 2022 study, “CO2 concentration as an indicator of indoor ventilation performance to control airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2” reviews this in-depth. Their proposed method of determination (with CO2 concentration to control the COVID airborne transmission based on the calculation of the rebreathed fraction) was used in environmental case studies in classrooms and restaurants. The duo was able to prescribe certain thresholds to be under in order to control the risk of SARS-CoV-2 airborne transmission. They conclude that “this methodology can be helpful for controlling the indoor air exchange in order to reduce the risk of airborne COVID-19 transmission in real-time by monitoring only CO2 concentration without calculating ventilation performance.”

Ronald Longley, President of CO2 Monitoring, LLC, spoke to KLAS8's I-Team about this issue, watch here:

💡 Fun fact: Through the School Reopening Ventilation and Energy Efficiency Verification and Repair Program from the California Assembly Bill 841, the state requires its participating schools and classrooms to ensure proper air ventilation through the usage of a carbon dioxide monitor. This legislation is even spreading to other states, like the Nevada Assembly Bill 257.