Investigation of the ventilation situation in a lecture room of building 033 at the Universität der Bundeswehr München

  1. Christian J. Kähler
  2. Thomas Fuchs
  3. Rainer Hain

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Discuss this preprint

Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is limiting both the private and public lives of many people around the world. It is now considered certain that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted via droplets, smear infection, and aerosol particles. While simple masks, spacing, and hand hygiene significantly reduce the risk of infection via the first two routes mentioned, the risk from aerosol particles remains. These small particles move with the air in the room and spread unhindered throughout it. To reduce the risk of infection from viruses present in aerosol particles, the following options exist. First, good respiratory masks can be worn to reduce the viral load in the inhaled air. Another option is to make the viruses harmless (e.g., by UV light). A third option is to reduce the viral load in the room by bringing in virus-free air and moving contaminated air out or cleaning the air in the room. To investigate how well virus load reduction via ventilation works in a real lecture room, measurements were carried out at the Universität der Bundeswehr München (University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich). The lecture room holds a maximum of approx. 90 people and has a ventilation system as well as 2 windows that can be opened. In the absence of a ventilation system in a comparable room, the effectiveness of a room air cleaner was also investigated.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.17.21253800: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.17.21253800 on medRxiv