SAGE EMG guidance on ventilation and COVID-19

On 23 October 2020, the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) published an Environmental and Modelling Group (EMG) paper on the Role of ventilation in controlling SARS-CoV-2 transmission. This paper examines public and workplace settings. Ventilation in domestic environments was covered in the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) and EMG paper, MHCLG housing impacts paper published on 10 September 2020.

[edit] Highlighted recommendations

The paper includes guidelines for better ventilation and indoor air quality in buildings, and introduces proactive measures that should be taken as facilities management teams prepare for employees to return to the workplace.

Recommendations include:

• Developing a risk mitigation plan to weigh up the consequences of opening windows to minimise the spread of infection against thermal discomfort, energy cost, noise disruptions, security and health and wellbeing impacts from exposure to pollutants.
• Identifying parts of the building that have poor ventilation rates (less than five litres per second per person or more than 1500ppm CO2) and prioritise them for remediation.
• Increasing ventilation in areas where there is a greater chance of virus transmission (either through greater concentration of employees or activities that occur in those areas).

The guidance was updated on 23 December 2020 to reflect the more aggressive variant of COVID-19 that was identified in the UK in late 2020.

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki

• Back to the workplace: are you prepared?
• Coronavirus and the construction industry.
• Designing HVAC to resist harmful microorganisms.
• Facilities management.
• Health performance indicators in the built environment.
• IAQ developments accelerated by COVID-19 pandemic.
• Ventilation and control of COVID-19 transmission.

[edit] External resources

• SAGE EMG, Mitigations to Reduce Transmission of the new variant SARS-CoV-2 virus SAGE-EMG, SPI-B, Transmission Group, 23 December 2020.
• SAGE EMG, Role of ventilation in controlling SARS-CoV-2 transmission, 23 October 2020.
• SSPI-B EMG, MHCLG housing impacts paper, 10 September 2020.