Currently, no commercial sensors exist that can monitor the concentrations of infectious viruses in the air in real time. However, indoor carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations — easily measurable with inexpensive hand-held devices — provide a good proxy for how much of the air we breathe is being exhaled by other people who may be infected. Now, there’s a new wrinkle. Research published in Nature in April 2024 concludes that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) also help viruses stay alive longer in the air. In other words, high CO2 levels in the air we breathe pose a double threat of viral contagion.
Let’s put these findings in the context of real-world measurements of CO2 in common situations faced by people attending and staffing in-person events.
What CO2 concentrations do conference attendees and staff experience?
Typical outdoor CO2 levels are 300 – 400 parts per million (ppm). In May 2022, I measured air quality readings during a trip to facilitate a conference in Puerto Rico. During that trip, I saw in-flight airplane CO2 concentrations of over 1,000 ppm. During embarking and deplaning I saw peaks of over 2,000 ppm. Ground transportation readings in taxis and coaches were well above 1,000 ppm. The conference center, with high ceilings and lightly occupied, had 500 – 600 ppm readings.
I’ve seen similar readings during numerous subsequent trips.
The prior consensus was that CO2 readings above ~1,000 ppm imply significant exposure to potentially infectious air. From an events perspective, before these latest findings, we classified environments of concern as follows:
Dangerously high CO2 exposures:
Ground transportation—private cars, taxis, coaches, etc., unless windows are open or fresh outdoor air ventilation is available.
Airplanes during embarking and deplaning.
High CO2 exposures:
Airplane flights.
Crowded conference rooms and common areas with poor ventilation.
Hotel rooms with poor ventilation or air flow from nearby rooms.
Indoor restaurants without excellent ventilation.
The double whammy of high CO2 in the air we breathe
We now know that high CO2 levels not only indicate that the air we breathe is more contaminated by other peoples’ exhalations, but also that high concentrations of CO₂ also help infectious viruses stay alive longer in the air.
“In poorly ventilated, occupied, indoor spaces, ambient [CO2(g)] commonly reaches concentrations exceeding 2000 ppm and can reach levels upwards of >5000 ppm in more crowded environments.”
“…a significant increase in SARS-CoV-2 aerostability results from a moderate increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (e.g. 800 ppm)”
“After 40 min, approximately an order of magnitude more viral infectious particles remain viable in the aerosol phase at elevated [CO2(g)] when compared to the loss expected under ambient (well-ventilated) conditions. This increase in the relative abundance of infectious particles is likely to result in increased risk of transmission of the infection.”
Significantly, the Nature researchers found that CO2 levels of as little as 800 ppm allow the SARS-CoV-2 virus to remain ten times more viable after forty minutes than regular CO2 levels. This happens within 2 minutes of exposure to 800 ppm of CO2.
“When compared to a typical atmospheric [CO2(g)] (~500 ppm), increasing the [CO2(g)] to just 800 ppm results in a significant increase in viral aerostability after 2 min … No significant difference in infectivity is observed between 800 ppm and 6500 ppm. It is notable that, according to the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), 800 ppm [CO2(g)] has been identified as the level below which a room is determined to be well-ventilated.”
“With the recent spread of H5N1 bird flu into many mammal species, including dairy cattle and farmworkers who care for them, and the continuing rise in atmospheric CO2 levels, understanding the complex interplay between viruses, human bodies, and the environments where they eat, sleep, and breathe, is only growing more urgent.”
What is now clear is that meeting environments previously seen as somewhat risky for viral contagion are much more dangerous than was previously thought.
It’s time for a “sound of silence” roundup of meetings industry pet peeves.
“…the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence” —Simon & Garfunkel – Sound Of Silence (1965)
Venue air quality is still a secret
How many venues have upgraded their HVAC systems in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Unfortunately, only The Shadow knows! I’ve never seen a venue website that features air quality upgrades, though the information is sometimes available on an obscure page. These days, I’ve found that if I call a venue, they will usually tell me what they’ve done. If anything.
It’s true that COVID-19 is not quite as serious an illness as it was in the earlier stages of the pandemic for most people. Death rates in the U.S. are now down to around a mere 1,000 a week. It’s still one of the top ten reasons people die. But with elderly and immunocompromised people at high risk, and the unknown chance of contracting Long COVID, the meeting industry is still largely shirking its duty of care.
A hat tip to the Javits Center and The Venetian for having done the work! Who else has upgraded their air filtration systems to MERV 13 or better? Share in the comments!
If you think about it, this is shocking. We spend vast sums of money and devote countless person-hours to holding a meeting. Yet we have no idea whether it made any significant long-term difference to the people who attended it!
Check out the above link for three tools you can use to explore the long-term impact of an event.
But I’m not holding my breath that any of them will be routinely deployed at meetings soon.
The continuing takeover of meeting industry education by suppliers with deep pockets
In my opinion (and many other event professionals with whom I’ve spoken) the educational content at the national meeting industry events these days is sub-par. I suspect it’s because the processes for choosing it are seriously flawed and completely opaque. Educational programs remain dominated by representatives of suppliers and sponsors who provide significant income to the industry association.
I’m not saying supplier and sponsor employees are incapable of providing good education, but there are a host of independent educators (yes, like myself) who have been relegated to the sound of silence over the last fifteen years. This is largely due to our unwillingness to share our valuable experience and experience at our own expense (no fee, no coverage of travel, meals, or accommodation.)
Don’t pay presenters unless they’re big names
Following up on the previous peeve. I’ve written a couple of posts (1, 2) about the reluctance of the meeting industry to pay presenters unless they are household names and are seen as “inspirational”.
Nothing has changed in the last ten years.
Fighting the sound of silence
“Hello, darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again… …People hearing without listening”
I’m going to close with a short tribute to someone in our industry who personifies the opposite of the sound of silence.
Her name is Joan Eisenstodt. Anyone who is truly listening will hear her. For decades she has spoken out about a myriad of often-overlooked issues in the meeting industry—the lack of care for the safety and wellbeing of the venue and hospitality employees that make our meetings possible, the lip service paid to DEI, ableism, the underrepresentation of minorities and women in positions of power, and the dire consequences of political decisions made at both the Federal and State level—to name just a few.
I think many would agree with me that she has been and remains the voice of conscience of our industry.
It’s a hard road to travel. I know I sometimes feel discouraged that some of the ideas I have shared have not become as widely accepted as I would like. So I wrote this to her recently:
“Dear Joan, Sometimes it feels as though no one is listening and our efforts are fruitless. But, Joan, I hope you know that you do make a difference. Many people listen to you. Many are influenced in ways you’ll never know. In my case, you have inspired me over the years to speak out more about important issues. You have influenced me, and I am grateful for it. And so are many in our industry. You fight the good fight and make good trouble. Bless you for it.”
Let’s dispel the sound of silence as Joan does. Our industry will be a better place when we do.
November 2022: Three recent events made me notice the ways our society’s establishment deflects criticism.
Veterans Day
Growing up in England taught me little about U.S. history, so it was only this year I learned that Veterans Day, first observed in 1919, was originally known as Armistice Day. (It’s still called this in France, while other countries call it Remembrance Day).
An armistice is an agreement to stop fighting a war. As President Woodrow Wilson said on the first Armistice Day, held at the end of World War I:
“…the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men.”
It’s great that we have a day to honor veterans. But what struck me when I learned about the name change in 1954 from Armistice Day to Veterans Day is that it deflected citizen attention from reinforcing the goal of ending war. The establishment eliminated Armistice Day—a day commemorating the end of war—and changed the focus to a day to honor military veterans.
I was three years old when politicians eliminated Armistice Day from our cultural vocabulary, and I don’t know the circumstances. But it’s easy to see the act as a cynical repression by the establishment of the concept that ending war is a noble and worthy goal for humanity.
When authorities bother to suggest precautions against the spread of COVID, they restrict any advice to wearing masks when indoors with others.
Wearing masks is an important prevention strategy that reduces personal risk and one’s risk of infecting others. But when many people eschew masking, COVID is going to be with us for a long time. Many more people will die and become disabled.
What authorities never mention is a far more effective prevention strategy that would, if comprehensively implemented, essentially wipe out COVID and other airborne diseases.
I’m talking, of course, about improving indoor air quality in buildings. Especially public buildings.
We have known for a hundred years the importance of providing fresh indoor air, and the necessary technology is widely available. Making our buildings safe by requiring adequate air changes/hour plus virus filtering provides permanent protection against viral epidemics. Not just COVID and flu, but past and future pandemics too.
Emphasizing individual masking while avoiding any society-wide attempts to improve building air quality is another example of how the establishment deflects responsibility for disease prevention away from our institutions and onto individuals.
After especially violent crimes like these, many who continue to resist any meaningful restrictions on the fetish of gun ownership in this country trot out the phrase “thoughts and prayers”. Of course, these platitudes do nothing to change the civilian slaughter rate, some 21,000 people (not including gun suicides) in 2021.
Politically powerful groups, heavily funded by the gun industry, repeatedly mouth “thoughts and prayers” but do nothing to change the daily carnage that easily available guns cause. These elites deflect our populace from thinking about whether the U.S. might be able to reduce gun violence and deaths by such systemic changes as keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, requiring background checks for all gun sales, and banning assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. All things that are done in other developed countries, with significant results.
Instead, the establishment relentlessly promotes the idea that Americans should take individual responsibility to protect themselves and their loved ones by buying guns of their own. The gun industry makes money, and the cycle of gun violence continues.
There are many more examples
There are many more examples of how our society’s establishment deflects criticism by emphasizing personal responsibility rather than systemic solutions to problems. These are just three that came up for me this week. If you would like to add your own examples, feel free to do so in the comments below.
Air quality has a significant effect on human health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become an especially critical issue. Why? Because COVID-19 spreads via aerosols that can float in the air for minutes to hours. Although there is currently no commercially available way to measure the presence of COVID-19 in the air, I’ve written about how measuring carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations can act as a useful proxy for COVID-19 infection risk. Small, inexpensive CO2 meters are now widely available.
So when I took a deep (masked) breath and decided to accept an invitation to design and lead a two-day meeting industry leadership summit in Puerto Rico, I decided to bring my CO2 meter with me. What would I learn about the air quality in the airports, planes, and ground transportation I used, as well as my hotel and the summit’s convention center? Well, I uncovered significant air quality concerns in places that may surprise you. Read on to find out what I discovered. But first, a brief explanation of what CO2 measurements mean.
How do CO2 levels correlate with the risk for COVID-19 infection?
It’s complicated! Measurements of indoor CO2 concentrations can often be good indicators of airborne infection risk. But clear conclusions on the CO2 level corresponding to a given COVID-19 infection risk are currently lacking. Multiple factors influence the risk. These include exposure duration, the mixing of air in the vicinity, the exhalation volume and rate of infected individuals, and, of course, the use of masks, virus-removing air filtration, and UVC and far-UVC radiation. This article gives some idea of the complexities involved. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has summarized current thinking on indoor CO2. ASHRAE takes the position that “indoor CO2 concentrations do not provide an overall indication of IAQ [indoor air quality], but they can be a useful tool in IAQ assessments if users understand the limitations in these applications.”
More research is required, especially because of “the ubiquity of indoor concentrations of CO2 in excess of 1,000 [parts per million] ppm.” And ASHRAE reports that “indoor concentrations of CO2 greater than 1,000 ppm have been associated with increases in self-reported, nonspecific symptoms commonly referred to as sick building syndrome symptoms.” To summarize, currently, there is insufficient research suggesting CO2 levels that indicate a significantly increased risk for COVID-19 infection. However, many authorities have tentatively proposed maximum levels of around 1,000 ppm CO2 as guidelines.
From a REHVA (The Federation of European Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) journal article on CO₂ monitoring and indoor air quality.
OK, enough of this; you probably want to know what I found. Here we go!
Flying
I flew JetBlue flights 261 and 462 between Boston (BOS) and San Juan (SJU). My outbound flight, on an Airbus A321, lasted 3 hours and 43 minutes. My return flight, on an Airbus A320, took 4 hours and 40 minutes. (Don’t ask.) On both flights, I had an aisle seat in row 15. As you can see from the photo at the top of this post, I perched my little CO2 meter on my knees when tray tables had to be up. The rest of the time, it nestled perfectly into the little tray table drink recess. Here’s an annotated graph of the CO2 readings I took on my outbound flight.
My key flight observations
Boarding the aircraft led to a large spike in CO2 levels. Levels increased sharply in the jetway as I approached the passenger door. Slowly walking down a packed aisle to my seat I saw readings around 2,000 ppm. Once in my seat, the levels dropped somewhat but were still high (1,600 ppm) when they closed the door.
Levels stayed high (above 1,500 ppm) while taxiing until we took off. We had been on the plane for about 50 minutes at this point.
I estimate that about 30% of the passengers were unmasked, as well as most of the flight attendants.
During the cruising portion of the flight, the CO2 level stayed at REHVA’s “upper range of reliable air quality” of 1,000 ppm. The level in the bathroom was 1,200 ppm.
Once we started our descent, levels rose a few hundred ppm. On landing, we were at 1,300 ppm.
During deplaning, levels soared again. I took the photo at the top of this post, showing a reading of 2,074 ppm, at this point.
As soon as they opened the passenger door, levels dropped to around 1,200 ppm.
On my return trip (which took close to five hours) I saw similar readings, except that:
The cruising flight CO2 level was significantly higher (1,200 – 1,400) ppm.
The boarding peak was lower (1,500 ppm).
The deplaning peak was an unsettling 2,400 ppm.
To summarize, these readings are troublesome. Aircraft ventilation systems reportedly filter out aerosols, assuming that the HEPA filters are regularly replaced. However, the close proximity of passengers (both flights were full) still allows people to infect others close to them, as this NY Times article illustrates. The high readings I saw indicate that in-flight ventilation was not fully operative during embarkation and deplaning on either flight. I am glad I wore a high-quality N95 mask during both.
Airports
BOS airport levels were around 600 ppm. At SJU I saw readings between 650 – 800 ppm. Both of these are acceptable. Neither airport was especially crowded, however, and I would be cautious about assuming it’s OK to go unmasked there.
Ground Transportation
This was a shocker to me. In the U.S. during the pandemic, when driving with others I’m used to having the car windows open, at least a little. Puerto Rico was hot and humid, and the vehicles I was in had the A/C on and windows closed. My client had arranged a car and driver to pick me up from the airport and drive me to the convention center for a couple of technical rehearsals and then to my hotel. Just the two of us in a Chevy Suburban quickly raised the CO2 level to around 1,500 ppm for the 30 minutes we were together. Luckily we were both masked.
I saw the same readings during my trip to the airport at the end of the event.
But I saw the highest readings during my travel in a shuttle bus bringing us to the opening reception. There were, perhaps, 20 of us on board. Readings spiked to over 3,000 ppm! And some of the passengers were unmasked.
The conference center
The conference center was far from maximum capacity and I only saw readings well below 1,000 ppm. We held the summit in four meeting rooms with high ceilings. We left the meeting room doors open, and my meter typically showed readings between 500 – 600 ppm. If the venue had been packed or the doors closed it might have been a different story.
My hotel
I was concerned about the air quality in my (large) hotel room because I expected it to have no openable windows due to San Juan’s climate, and this proved to be the case. Over the three nights I was there I noticed the same pattern. On entering the room during the day, readings were about 600 ppm. As evening approached, the readings slowly climbed to about 900 ppm.
I had reason to be concerned.
The increase in CO2 as evening approached was probably due to increased occupancy of nearby rooms. Building heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) systems typically recirculate interior air, mixing together air from all the rooms in the building. So as guests retire to their rooms in the evening, the overall CO2 concentration in every room increases.
That means that although I was alone in my room I was breathing exhalations from other guests. If any of those guests had COVID-19, it’s possible that their aerosols would travel into the air I was breathing. There was nothing I could do to protect myself other than wearing a mask the whole time I was there (which obviously included sleeping!)
Commercial HVAC systems
Commercial HVAC systems include filters to remove dust and dirt. Typical HVAC filters will not stop COVID-19 aerosols unless they have been upgraded to MERV 13 or better (e.g. HEPA). They also need to be regularly replaced to work correctly.
Whether these mitigation measures have been performed at a hotel is hard to know. My hotel was modern, but that doesn’t mean its HVAC system was well-designed and safe. I have stayed at hundreds of hotels over the years. Some of them, based on the odor of the rooms, had ventilation problems of some kind. Paradoxically, the single-unit heating and cooling systems common in inexpensive lodgings could be safer because air entering the room only comes from outside.
Concerns like these have made me cautious about staying in accommodations that don’t have windows that can be opened. That wasn’t possible in Puerto Rico, and my CO2 monitor gave me at least some reassurance that air quality levels weren’t too bad. However, many commercial lodging offerings don’t offer this option. The inspection and, if necessary, re-engineering of hotel HVAC systems is an important step to protect guest health. Yes, it costs money, but if the owners have done this work they should publicize it as a reason to stay.
As I write this, I’ve been isolating for four days since my return and just performed my fourth daily rapid antigen test. All have been negative. So it looks like I’ve escaped getting COVID-19 during my first major travel since the pandemic began. I recommend travelers purchase an inexpensive CO2 meter and bring it with them.
I hope the information I’ve shared in this post is helpful in warning other travelers of potentially dangerous environments. COVID-19 is far from over. As the pandemic continues, monitor your air quality while traveling—and mask up.
The old meeting industry normal is long over, and many event professionals are still hoping and waiting for a new normal.
In October 2020 I wrote two posts [1, 2] about what a meeting industry new normal might look like. As I write this in February 2022, two years have passed since the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the world and the event industry. It’s time to take another look. How have my predictions held up? And what does the future hold?
Looking back
Six months into the pandemic, I wrote that three fundamental things had to happen for everything to go as well as possible in the global fight against the coronavirus.
1. “If we’re really lucky, we’ll have a safe, inexpensive, effective vaccine sometime before the end of 2021.”
Even if no further variants appear, the above factors mean that COVID-19 is here to stay for the indefinite future. As I write, for example, South Korea is experiencing a massive surge, the largest of the entire pandemic. The dominant COVID-19 variants are so contagious that it’s currently impossible to prevent further spread and outbreaks until most of the world population is adequately vaccinated or builds up enough (weaker) immunity through repeated infections.
We may eventually tame the pandemic by developing effective and inexpensive antivirals and making them widely available to those contracting COVID-19. However, the virus is likely to develop resistance to such drugs, which are currently in short supply and expensive, so continued R&D will be needed.
Finally, it’s important to remember that we still do not understand the health impact of long covid. The American Medical Association estimates that “anywhere from 15% to 80% of patients might experience long COVID after recovering—even if they weren’t very sick in the first place”. I have friends and family that are still suffering serious effects of long covid—you probably have too. Now vaccines and better treatments have reduced the risk of dying from COVID-19. But that doesn’t mean we can dismiss its significant long-term health consequences going forward.
Holding in-person meetings: what do we now know?
Here’s a quick overview of what I see as the relative risks involved in attending in-person meetings at this point. Two important caveats are that I’m assuming travelers:
Are fully vaccinated; and
Use good quality masks when in public enclosed spaces.
Risks of serious illness for the unvaccinated are at least an order of magnitude higher. See below for situations when masks cannot be worn.
Travel
Airline travel seems reasonably safe these days. Airlines claim “cabin air is refreshed 20-30 times an hour.” If correct, this is more than adequate. The main exposure risks occur during boarding and deplaning when in-flight airplane ventilation systems are not operating. However, I would avoid long plane flights for now if possible, as it’s somewhat risky to unmask to eat or drink on a plane.
Train travel has a similar risk exposure. Amtrak says that its “trains are equipped with onboard filtration systems with a fresh air exchange rate every 4-5 minutes”. Again, if accurate, this is more than adequate.
If attendees and staff follow precautions, traveling to and from meetings is not as high-risk as the following activities.
Accommodations
As described below, very few hotels (and venues) seem to have implemented ASHRAE’S building readiness standards for air quality in their properties. Sleeping in a hotel room when one can’t wear a mask has an unknown and potentially high risk for COVID-19 infection unless you can obtain fresh air by opening windows. Consequently, I currently prefer to stay in self-contained Airbnb properties. There, I can be confident that air from an unknown source won’t contaminate indoor air.
Dining and socializing
Currently, eating and drinking indoors is quite risky unless the location has upgraded its HVAC systems to adequately filter COVID, the space has very high ceilings, or copious fresh outdoor air is available from open windows.
Understandably, people want to connect at in-person meetings. We are drawn to do this during meals and socials where masks cannot be or are not worn. Which can lead to consequences like this:
“…now myself and at least 25% of our participants are sick with COVID. I am hearing from someone else every day…All the precautions in the world don’t really matter if you abandon them when people eat and drink. We all know this yet we are all still doing it for the most part.“
—Quote from a meeting planner’s January 2022 conference report
I’ve heard reports of this natural but hazardous behavior at many conferences held over the last couple of years. Given the ease of transmission of dominant COVID-19 variants, the best way to minimize such risks is to hold meals and socials outdoors. Obviously, this is not always practical.
Conclusions
Currently, hardly any in-person events report post-event attendee and staff COVID cases. In many cases, there is no apparent effort made to perform post-event case tracking.
Consequently, while we all desire in-person meetings, I think it’s incumbent on every event stakeholder to consider the effect of their event on the health of participants and staff and determine whether, in good conscience, the meeting should best take place in-person or online.
Looking forward: What the meeting industry still needs to do
Two years after COVID-19 started, we know what to do to keep in-person meetings safe. Currently, it’s still critical that vaccination and masking requirements are in place for events to occur safely. Yet the meeting and hospitality industries still have their heads in the sand in one crucial safety area.
Upgrade air quality in venues and accommodations
As we start thinking about returning to in-person events, it’s crucial to check that venues are upgrading their HVAC systems to handle potentially virus-infused air. This does not appear to be happening! Since I wrote at length about this important safety requirement back in April 2021, I have only heard of one additional venue that is providing COVID-safe ventilation — the Javits Center in New York City. [Heard of others? Let me know, either directly or via comments on this post!]
Let me put this in simple terms. COVID-19 is here to stay for the indefinite future. Would you want to stay in a hotel room with ventilation that includes air from the room next door where a COVID-positive person is sleeping? Do you want to mingle, unmasked, during a meeting social with strangers where the ventilation rate is inadequate to clear the air of COVID-19 aerosols? Even if you’re cavalier about such infection risks, we have a duty of care to attendees and staff.
Right now, updating venue ventilation for COVID-19 is a competitive advantage. Being able to say a property is compliant with current ventilation guidance is a great selling point, as the Javits Center illustrates.
Plan for future COVID-19 variants (and new pandemics)
To date, we’ve had several COVID-19 variants play havoc with our in-person meeting plans. We now need to assume that another new dominant variant could appear at any time.
Dominance occurs because a new variant is more transmissible than older ones. A dominant variant may or may not cause more severe disease than other variants.
What this means is that we now need backup plans for switching in-person meetings that can’t be postponed to online formats at relatively short notice. Yes, our work just got even more complicated than it already was. Meetings sure aren’t getting any easier to plan!
Conclusions for a new meeting industry normal
Finally, it should be clear that at this point I’m still cautious about returning to in-person meetings. Millions of people—the elderly, the immunocompromised, and young children who cannot yet be vaccinated—are particularly vulnerable to severe consequences if they catch COVID-19. Some may have to wear masks for the rest of their lives. Premature removal of mask and vaccination mandates at meetings will cause additional, possibly fatal illnesses amongst this population. I hope meeting planners do not rush to relax these important mandates in the mistaken belief that we have reached or are about to return to the old meeting normal.
My concluding paragraph from Part 2 of these posts still applies:
“We are living in unprecedented times. Experimenting with new approaches to designing and convening meetings is essential. What may be even harder is discovering what works and adopting it, rather than staying locked in the old comfortable ways of making meetings. Meetings will continue to occur, and the meeting industry will survive. But don’t passively buy into the myth of a new meeting industry normal. That is if you want to remain a player in one of the most important industries the human race has created.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the in-person meeting industry. Though it took too long to recognize that COVID-19 spreads via air transmission, we finally have effective procedures (vaccine mandates, masking, air quality standards, and social distancing) to reduce infection risk at in-person meetings. Now, meeting planners can add an affordable air quality tool to their site visits.
How can you determine air quality at a prospective venue?
Look around the room at an in-person event and you’ll see if masking and social distancing are taking place. We can implement vaccination mandates using third-party vendors such as sharemy.health, CLEAR Health Pass, Safe Expo, and others. But how can we determine the air quality at a prospective venue?
Currently, we don’t know how to detect airborne COVID-19 viruses. (This is likely to be true for a long time. We still have no test for airborne tuberculosis bacterium (TB) transmission two centuries after identifying TB as a distinct disease.)
Luckily, under the conditions I’ll outline below, we can obtain useful information about a venue’s air quality by using a device that measures a proxy for air pollution: carbon dioxide (CO₂).
People breathe in air, typically containing about 0.04% CO₂. They breathe out a mixture of gases containing about 4 – 5 % CO₂. People with COVID-19 co-exhale respiratory aerosols containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
If an occupied building space has effective ventilation, the occupants’ excess exhaled CO₂ is quickly diluted with fresh air, and the CO₂ level in the air remains close to normal values. Measuring the level of CO₂ in the air can, therefore, tell us whether effective ventilation is present or not.
Here are the generally accepted standards for CO₂ levels:
~400 parts per million (ppm) – Normal outdoor air level. 400 ~ 1000 ppm – Typical value level indoors with good ventilation. 1,000 ppm – the OSHA/ASHRAE recommended maximum level in a closed room. > 1,200 ppm – Poor air quality – requires ventilation in the room. 2,000 ppm – This level of CO2 typically produces a significant increase in drowsiness, tiredness, headaches, lower levels of concentration, and an increased likelihood of spreading respiratory viruses.
Until recently, meters that measure CO₂ levels in the air cost hundreds of dollars. (Some models with especially accurate sensors or the capability to measure other air pollutants still do.) But today we can buy an affordable air quality tool — a hand-held CO₂ meter for under $100. The one I just purchased (illustrated above) cost $80, and there’s a wide variety to choose from (for example, from here or here).
My 3.27″ (diameter) x 1.26″ (depth) meter measures CO₂ levels from 0 – 5,000 ppm. It can run on standby for 18 hours, supports USB charging, and includes a battery level indicator and temperature and humidity readings. While its specifications omit accuracy, inexpensive CO₂ meters are typically reliable within ±100 ppm. This is good enough to provide a decent estimate of the air quality in an enclosed space.
My unit shows a concentration of ~350 ppm CO₂ outside my rural Vermont home, which was built tightly. In my home office, the level increases to about 450 ppm and rises to about 525 ppm if I’m sitting next to the unit for a while. Slightly cracking open a window quickly brings down the reading.
I haven’t had time to explore other buildings yet, but am looking forward to seeing what I find out when I do.
Is a CO₂ a proxy for indoor air quality in occupied spaces?
Can measuring CO₂ levels give us a useful indication of indoor air quality?
The answer is a qualified yes. It depends!
First of all, we need to measure CO₂ levels in occupied spaces. A meeting planner doing a site visit should take CO₂ readings in occupied meeting rooms, restaurants, hotel lobbies, etc. Taking measurements in empty spaces will only show high readings if the building ventilation system is grossly inadequate (with CO₂ infiltrating from other areas.) Also bear in mind that increasing the number of occupants in a space increases the likelihood that an infectious person will be present and the number of people possibly infected. Doubling occupancy can thus cause a four-fold increase in risk of transmitting COVID-19.
Finally, air treatment options, such as MERV 13 or better filtering, or possibly ultraviolet-C radiation, may reduce the prevalence of active COVID-19 aerosols. When venues employ these mitigation strategies, CO₂ levels will not be decreased. Of course, if a venue has deployed these preventative measures, they will surely inform you about them when asked!
Due to these factors, you shouldn’t rely solely on measurements of CO₂ levels to determine whether a space is ventilated enough to mitigate transmission risk.
However, a simple CO₂ meter like the one I now own can be an effective air quality tool, providing valuable information to anyone who wants to investigate the air quality of occupied spaces at venues, hotels and properties, restaurants, and other meeting locales. I’ll be bringing mine when I travel, and I encourage you to do this as well!
More information on the relationship between CO₂ levels and COVID-19 exposure
If you’d like to learn more about the relationship between CO₂ levels and COVID-19 exposure risk, here are some useful references:
Sadly, while I acknowledge and appreciate Freeman’s significant work on the case for recommencing meeting in person, I believe this claim is misleading, and the underlying modeling and research include flawed assumptions.
Make no mistake; I love to design and facilitate in-person meetings. I strongly desire to be able to safely return to facilitating and attending in-person events. But, as meeting professionals, we have a professional duty of care during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, I think it’s important to provide a realistic assessment of risk for meeting stakeholders—especially potential attendees. Articles are already appearing in meeting publications (1, 2) that highlight the one-line summary of the Freeman announcement above. Such opinions, buttressed by what seems to be solid research and modeling, can easily give our industry the impression that in-person meetings can safely recommence.
My concerns about Freeman’s statements
I have two broad concerns about Freeman’s summary of research “Inside LIVE: The data you need to navigate the Delta variant for events” on the safety of in-person events. You can watch Freeman’s 55-minute webinar, posted on August 25, 2021, below.
1—Freeman’s overall conclusion is misleading
My first concern is that Freeman’s big-picture conclusion that “in-person events are actually safer than many daily activities, like trips to the grocery store” is a misleading characterization of the statistics they present.
Here are the statistics (from the next webinar slide).
This slide compares the mid-August, 2021 rate of COVID cases amongst the entire population in the United States with the reported rates from four recent large in-person events. The second column shows the infection rate as a percentage.
The entire U.S. infection rate is indeed higher than the reported rates from the listed recent in-person events. (I’ll add that we know that reported rates are typically significantly lower than actual rates, but let’s assume that both sets of statistics are undercounted to the same degree.)
Because the statement conflates the risk of a masked visit to a grocery store with the overall risk in the United States of getting infected! The latter regrettably includes a significant fraction of the U.S. population who:
Won’t or can’t be vaccinated;
Don’t wear masks to protect against airborne transmission of COVID-19; and
Don’t social distance.
The risk of contracting COVID-19 during a grocery store masked visit is far less than the overall risk for everyone in the U.S.
The headline statement is, therefore, comparing apples to oranges. You’d expect any event that implements precautions against COVID-19 transmission to have a lower infection rate than the entire United States. That doesn’t mean that attending an event is a safe enough choice for attendees and staff.
This brings us to what’s actually important to people trying to make a decision about whether to attend an event. The event modeling, performed for Freeman by Epistemix, and discussed later, suggests that those who are currently likely to attend a large in-person business event that implements mitigation strategies such as vaccination requirements, masking, and social distancing, are significantly more likely to be vaccinated (~80%). That statistic seems credible to me.
Such potential attendees, who are already more careful than the average American about how they live their lives in a pandemic, aren’t interested in whether an event environment provides a risk of getting COVID-19 comparable to the average risk of the entire population of the U.S. Rather, they want to know if attending the event will significantly (defined by them) increase their likelihood of contracting COVID-19. And that brings me to the second concern about the assumptions made by Epistemix’s event risk model.
2—The event risk model used for risk calculations is flawed and incomplete
When I heard about the Freeman webinar (thanks Julius Solaris!), I posted some initial responses. Freeman’s Jessica Fritsche was kind enough to reach out to me and arrange a Zoom call with John Cordier, the CEO of Epistemix, to walk through the data modeling used in the research. And John generously offered an hour of his time for us to talk. Sarah Shewey, Founder/CEO of Happily, also joined us. Sarah was interested in learning more about how infection rates at meetings could be modeled.
During our hour together, John shared an overview of the Epistemix model. This gave me a better understanding of Epistemix’s approach. The model essentially attempts to simulate the entire population of the United States at an impressive level of detail. It includes numerous geographic and social factors that affect infection risk. However, during our conversation, I asked about a number of important factors that I believe Epistemix has not incorporated into its model of calculating meeting risks.
Probably the most important of these is adequately modeling the air quality at the event, given the paucity of information available about the safety of specific venues and properties from an air quality perspective. In addition, the model does not include the additive risks for travel to and from an event, and staying in a hotel during an event. Though it’s likely possible to model the increased risk during (unmasked) eating and drinking social activities during the event, it doesn’t appear that the Epistemix model does this. Finally, though the Epistemix model incorporates information about COVID-19 variants as they become known, I’m skeptical that it can accurately predict in a timely manner the impact of brand-new COVID-19 variants.
In the following sections, I’ll expand on these issues in more detail.
Flaws and omissions in Epistemix’s meeting model
First, a tiny introduction to modeling human systems. All models are an approximation of reality. Consequently,
I learned to program computers in high school, over 50 years ago. Through a series of summer jobs, undergraduate and graduate work, and consulting assignments, I’ve spent years creating computer models of city traffic systems, the interactions of high-energy particle beams bombarding matter, the consequences of obscure physics theories, and the functions of complicated administrative systems.
Two fundamental considerations when building and trusting computer models are:
The assumptions one makes in building a model are key to the model being actually useful rather than wrong. Computer models are very seductive. They seem precise and authoritative, and it’s hard to discover and accept their limitations and/or even their completely wrong predictions. Choosing the right assumptions is an art, not a science. One poor assumption can doom a model’s reliability.
Even if you choose good assumptions, implementing them correctly in computer code is difficult. It’s hard to be sure that an implementation faithfully reflects core assumptions. An incorrect implementation of a potentially useful model typically leads to incorrect predictions. If you’re lucky, it’s obvious that a model’s outputs are wrong. But sometimes, predictions are subtly wrong in ways that are easy to overlook.
I’m going to assume that Epistemix models faithfully implement the assumptions made to create them (#2 above). However, I’ve identified four factors that I feel Epistemix has not incorporated into its model of calculating meeting risks. Some of these factors are interlinked.
1—Adequately modeling airborne COVID-19 transmission at a specific event
While talking to John, it became clear to me that the current Epistemix approach does not adequately model the air quality—and the consequent risk of COVID-19 transmission—at a specific event. The model has some capacity to estimate risks (which are generally minimal) in very large, high-ceiling spaces like convention halls. But, of course, the typical meeting venue contains multiple meeting spaces, some of them small, and, critically, the venues do not in general have a good handle (if any) on the air quality in those spaces. (Or, if they do, they’re not talking publicly about it.)
When I wrote about this issue six months ago, I put out an industry-wide request to learn of venues and properties that had upgraded their HVAC systems to current ASHRAE recommendations (typically ~5 air changes/hour plus MERV 13 or better air filtering). I promised to publicize the venues that had made these upgrades.
I know such upgrades can be costly. But you’d think that venues and properties that have implemented them would love to promote themselves as having air quality that meets current pandemic-based standards.
To date, I have not been told of a single venue that is now compliant with ASHRAE pandemic recommendations. (I hope that by now there are some and that they will share this information.) During the webinar, Freeman said that they have been and are doing such work. Please share this information, folks! Meeting planners want to know!
Frankly, without this information a) being made available and b) being incorporated into the Epistemix model it’s hard to have much confidence in the infection risks Epistemix’s model predicts.
2—Additive risks for travel to and from an event, and staying in a hotel during an event
Epistemix’s model does not include the additive risks for attendees (and staff) traveling to and from an event. The main concern is air travel. The air industry has stressed that air change rates in aircraft are high (over 10 air changes/hour) and, now that masks are mandatory, infection risks should therefore be low. An excellent investigation by the New York Times “How Safe Are You From Covid When You Fly?” has tempered this assessment somewhat. Of particular interest are comments from a couple of readers who monitored the carbon-dioxide level—an excellent proxy for air quality—during their entire travel. They found that boarding and deplaning air quality was drastically reduced, as well as during the last thirty minutes of one person’s flight. Exposure at terminal restaurants, where masks must be removed, is also potentially risky.
Quite apart from the “event” itself, staying in a venue may greatly increase one’s risk of infection. I wrote about venue and property ventilation concerns in detail in April 2021, and later articles by PCMA (1, 2) and the New York Times (1) have echoed this concern.
Again, travel risks are not included in Epistemix’s model. They can be significant. They have to be included to determine the relative risk for an event attendee who is choosing whether to participate or staff an event, or not.
3—Modeling the increased risk when masks are off for socials and group meals
Most in-person meetings include meals and socials, when masking is not possible. Unless you hold such unmasked get-togethers outdoors or in safely ventilated venues, airborne transmission of COVID-19 amongst everyone present (attendees and staff) is a potentially significant and unknown risk. Outdoor locations are only possible for limited periods in much of the U.S. As mentioned above, venues and properties remain silent on whether they’ve upgraded and certified their facilities to current ASHRAE recommendations on air quality.
We have also seen reports of numerous cases of reduced, unmasked social distancing at socials and meals. We can understand this in a world where we’ve masked for so long. But it is still a risky activity, especially in spaces where ventilation is inadequate.
My understanding (which may be incorrect) of Epistemix’s model is that masking is a global parameter for an event. The model does not handle unmasking in specific event spaces for periods of time. Even if the model does have this flexibility, the lack of knowledge of whether such spaces are safely ventilated prevents an accurate risk assessment.
4—Can Epistemix model the appearance of brand-new COVID-19 variants?
I am also still skeptical that Epistemix can build new variants into the model predictions in a timely fashion. The world took about six months after the delta variant was first identified to realize that it was radically changing COVID-19 transmission rates. While Epistemix’s model includes the infection characteristics of multiple variants and new variants can be added once they are identified, I wonder if an event organizer who made a go/no-go decision about a fall meeting early this summer based on the Epistemix model would be happy about the increased predicted risks once the delta variant was added.
But John and I didn’t have time to fully explore this issue, so this concern may be overblown.
Are in-person events COVID safe?
I really appreciate John Cordier’s willingness to share an overview of Epistemix’s infection risk model for events. Obviously, my brief introduction means there’s no way I can authoritatively review the extensive assumptions that are built into the model. Epistemix’s model is impressively detailed and, if correctly implemented (which I have no reason to doubt), seems to comprehensively cover core demographics, the data needed to model infection spread in regional populations, and most major components for predicting infection at a specific event.
When I brought up the concerns I’ve listed in this post, I felt that John largely talked past me, continuing with an explanation of the model without responding directly to what I was asking. This was somewhat frustrating. The two exceptions to this were:
My question about whether the model could accurately predict in a timely manner the impact of brand new variants. This arose at the end of our meeting. John indicated that he believed the model was able to do this, but we didn’t have enough time to explore this issue fully. I’m still skeptical, though he might well have been able to convince me otherwise if we’d had more time.
My primary concern about modeling air quality in detail. John admitted during the meeting that the model does not currently handle specific venue air quality architecture at the detail that’s necessary to simulate, say, what happens when you have a session in a smaller classroom with an HVAC system that is not up to current ASHRAE recommendations. It also omits risks due to event participants (and staff) spending time in properties that may have inadequate air quality. He wrote to me afterward that “he’d be glad to follow up on the air-quality parameters that you think are most important”.
The limitations of modeling
I’ve seen so many pretty models of systems over the decades. To a casual viewer, they look impressive. It’s only because I spent years building and validating such models that I know how misleading they can be. It’s difficult, but important to identify the key factors and approximations that form the basis of the model and limit its scope and/or accuracy.
Leaving out detailed venue-specific air quality modeling, plus the incoming and return travel risks and accommodation risks during an event, plus inadequate modeling of the risk of transmission during socials and food & beverage sessions make the outputs of the Epistemix model suspect. And I’m skeptical that Epistemix can build new variants into the model predictions in a timely fashion.
Finally, I haven’t covered in this article the feasibility of implementing the various mitigation strategies that are available to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection at meetings. Personally, I’d insist on proof of vaccination (no exceptions) and maximal masking at any event I’m likely to attend in the near future. But I’ll just add here this observation from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society‘s HIMSS21 Las Vegas conference for 19,000 attendees. Vaccination was mandatory for all attendees. There were six positive test results (0.03% infarction rate). However, this PCMA article on the event includes the statement: “…you will not be able to service your show if you require every single vendor employee, every single supplier employee, every single temp employee to be vaccinated — there’s just not enough labor out there.” Something to bear in mind.
Are in-person events COVID safe?
Are in-person events COVID safe? Ultimately, each of us needs to decide the answer to this question. But, in my opinion, until the COVID-19 case count drops drastically and/or venues can show that their facility ventilation is safe, it’s a violation of our professional duty of care to mislead attendees and those who work in our industry by telling them “in-person events are actually safer than many daily activities, like trips to the grocery store”.
Attention, meeting planners! Safe meeting venue ventilation for COVID-19 is critical. As we start thinking about returning to in-person events, it’s crucial to check that venues are upgrading their HVAC systems to handle potentially virus-infused air.
There has been little public discussion on this important topic. In this post, I’ll explain why questions about venues’ HVAC safety should be at the top of your site visit checklist.
Before we start, I need to make clear I’m not an HVAC engineer. My (perhaps) relevant background is an ancient Ph.D. in high-energy particle physics. I also spent two years spent exploring ventilation systems—specifically air-to-air heat exchangers—when I owned a solar manufacturing company in the 1980s.
Introduction
Since the pandemic began, the science of COVID-19 transmission has evolved rapidly. Because early theories turned out to be inaccurate, current preventative measures are frequently misdirected. So I’ve included a short history of theories of COVID-19 transmission. These shed light on the reasons we’ve underestimated the importance of ventilation in creating safe environments for indoor events.
Next, I’ve outlined what current research indicates venues and properties should be doing.
Finally, I’ve aired my concerns about how well venues and properties are responding to the safety concerns I’ve introduced.
A short history of theories of COVID-19 transmission
Initial focus on surface contamination
Early reports on SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission falsely concluded that surface contamination was a significant transmission vector.
“COVID-19 is transmitted via droplets and fomites during close unprotected contact between an infector and infectee. Airborne spread has not been reported for COVID-19 and it is not believed to be a major driver of transmission based on available evidence.” [Emphasis added] —Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), February 2020
This led to an epidemic of another kind—regularly cleaning and disinfecting surfaces. Meeting industry venues that have remained open during the pandemic adopted cleaning and disinfecting everything in sight as a visible assurance that their venues were safe places to gather.
“By May, [2020] the WHO and health agencies around the world were recommending that people in ordinary community settings — houses, buses, churches, schools and shops — should clean and disinfect surfaces, especially those that are frequently touched. Disinfectant factories worked around the clock to keep up with heavy demand.” —COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning?, Dyani Lewis, Nature, January 2021
However, current research suggests that the risk of infection from touching a heavily contaminated surface is less than 5 in 10,000. This is considerably lower than current estimates for SARS-CoV-2 infection through aerosols.
By the way, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommends that cleaning activities be performed after hours, rather than during meetings because “Vacuuming, sweeping, curtain cleaning, brooms, could potentially re-suspend infectious particles.” [ASHRAE Epidemic Commercial Task Force recommendations, updated March 2021, Page 10.]
Droplet transmission
After scientific consensus quickly moved to droplet transmission as a significant factor, face masks were strongly recommended, and mandated at most in-person meetings. However, there have been numerous reports of lax mask usage during F&B breaks and socials.
Social distancing was also recommended. Why? Because it was thought that the COVID-19 virus was mainly transmitted via large respiratory droplets that fall quickly. This belief is still popular and frequently cited today.
Airborne transmission
Unfortunately, the latest research now points to aerosol transmission of COVID-19 as a significant vector. Aerosols are small droplets and particles (formed when small droplets dry quickly in the airstream) that can remain suspended for many minutes to hours. They can travel far from the source of air currents. An excellent summary of this research is included in The Lancet‘s April 15, 2021 article: Ten scientific reasons in support of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Here’s the key introductory paragraph:
If an infectious virus spreads predominantly through large respiratory droplets that fall quickly, the key control measures are reducing direct contact, cleaning surfaces, physical barriers, physical distancing, use of masks within droplet distance, respiratory hygiene, and wearing high-grade protection only for so-called aerosol-generating health-care procedures. Such policies need not distinguish between indoors and outdoors, since a gravity-driven mechanism for transmission would be similar for both settings. But if an infectious virus is mainly airborne, an individual could potentially be infected when they inhale aerosols produced when an infected person exhales, speaks, shouts, sings, sneezes, or coughs. Reducing airborne transmission of virus requires measures to avoid inhalation of infectious aerosols, including ventilation, air filtration, reducing crowding and time spent indoors, use of masks whenever indoors, attention to mask quality and fit, and higher-grade protection for health-care staff and front-line workers. [Emphasis added.]
How to think about aerosols
You can think of COVID-19 aerosols as cigarette smoke, or the aroma from cooking food. Of course, aerosols diffuse over distance, which is why social distancing is still a good idea, and why transmission of COVID-19 outdoors is unlikely unless people are tightly packed together. Incidentally, this means that if you’re eating or drinking at a restaurant or bar and can smell the food of diners at a nearby table or the smells of cooking from the kitchen, you’re not in a safe situation as far as COVID-19 transmission is concerned.
Pre-pandemic building ventilation standards are inadequate for COVID-19
Interim guidance published by the California Department of Public Health points out that standard building environments have not been engineered to control exposures to small aerosols of hazardous viruses, such as COVID-19:
“Our understanding of the role that the built environment plays in the transmission of COVID-19 is evolving; recent literature has clearly demonstrated small aerosols can be carried well beyond the six (6) foot physical radius and remain suspended in room air where they can be inhaled. With the possible exception of hospitals, healthcare facilities, and research facilities that employ exhaust hoods, existing ventilation requirements, such as those established in the California Building Code and Title 24, were not intended to control exposures to small aerosols of hazardous infectious agents such as COVID-19.” [Emphasis added] —General Considerations extract from the Interim guidance for Ventilation, Filtration, and Air Quality in Indoor Environments, California Department of Public Health, February 21, 2021
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) points out that many existing mechanical air filters will not remove enough levels of airborne COVID-19:
“ASHRAE recommends that mechanical filter efficiency be at least MERV 13 and preferable MERV 14 or better to help mitigate the transmission of infectious aerosols. Many existing HVAC systems were designed and installed to operate using MERV 6 to MERV 8 filters. While MERV 13 and greater filters are better at removing particles in the 0.3 micron to 1 micron diameter size (the size of many virus particles) the higher efficiency does not come without a penalty. Higher efficiency filters may require greater air pressures to drive or force air through the filter. Care must be taken when increasing the filter efficiency in an HVAC system to verify that the capacity of the HVAC system is sufficient to accommodate the better filters without adversely affecting the system’s ability to maintain the owner’s required indoor temperature and humidity conditions and space pressure relationships.” [Emphasis added] —ASHRAE Epidemic Taskforce Building Readiness (updated March 16, 2021)
Updating HVAC systems is not plug and play
The above ASHRAE guidelines explain that you cannot simply swap existing filters with MERV 13 or better filters and pronounce your building “ready” to handle potentially COVID-19 infected people. Venues and properties will typically need to involve “licensed and certified professionals and companies that can perform the analysis, testing, design, construction, control programming, balancing, commissioning, maintenance and operation services required to make the adjustments and achieve the performance included in these recommendations.”
Major heating plant upgrades may be needed to create safe air quality for occupants.
Reopening unoccupied buildings
Finally, many properties and venues have been operating in low-occupancy mode for long periods. Reopening such buildings safely, even to pandemic-appropriate occupancy levels, can require several weeks of preparation for the HVAC plant and facility staff. Here is what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends be done before resuming business operations:
Evaluate the building and its mechanical and life safety systems to determine if the building is ready for occupancy. Check for hazards associated with prolonged facility shutdown such as mold growth, rodents or pests, or issues with stagnant water systems, and take appropriate remedial actions.
Increase circulation of outdoor air as much as possible by opening windows and doors if possible, and using fans. Do not open windows and doors if doing so poses a safety or health risk for occupants, including children (e.g., a risk of falling or of breathing outdoor environmental contaminants such as carbon monoxide, molds, or pollens).
To minimize the risk of Legionnaires’ disease and other diseases associated with water, take steps to ensure that all water systems and features (e.g., sink faucets, drinking fountains, decorative fountains) and water-using devices (e.g., ice machines, cooling towers) are safe to use after a prolonged facility shutdown.
What are meeting venues doing to create safe ventilation?
I’m concerned about the lack of visible venue and property efforts to resolve the ventilation safety issues caused by COVID-19.
Over the last couple of months, I’ve reached out to industry contacts and meeting professionals on social media. I’ve asked for examples of venues and properties that have implemented (or are implementing) ventilation upgrades that will satisfy recent interim comprehensive guidelines such as those published by ASHRAE and the California Department of Public Health.
To date, I have heard of only one venue—a California hotel property that installed MERV 13 filters. If your venue has made or is making such upgrades, please let me know, either directly or via comments on this post.
Perhaps many venues are quietly making these changes. I hope that’s the case.
Perhaps some venues are ignoring the problem, hoping that, somehow, the COVID-19 pandemic will disappear, and they’ll be able to host in-person events without updating their HVAC plant. I doubt they’ll be so lucky.
Frankly, I’m surprised that those who have updated their venue ventilation for COVID-19, aren’t publicizing this as a competitive advantage. Our industry is yearning for the return of in-person meetings. Being able to say a property is compliant with current ventilation guidance seems like a great selling point. This article from the Washington Post (kindly shared with me by Joan Eisenstodt) exemplifies the kind of positive PR that’s possible.
After all, many smaller businesses have already taken the necessary steps to create safe ventilation in their buildings. My dentist and physical therapist, and my wife’s massage therapist have all created safe ventilation environments for their places of business. They’re happy to share the details with anyone who asks.
Is it too much to ask meeting venues to do the same?
More resources
Here are some additional resources that you may find useful. Again, please be cautious of any information you find that has not been published or updated in the last few months—it may be outdated.
Many thanks to Joan Eisenstodt, Robert Carey, Anne Carey, Barbara McManus, Paul Radde, Dan Cormany, Sarah Diem, and Lauren Siring, who provided information and helpful suggestions and resources as I found my way into the complex topic of venue ventilation for COVID-19!
This April 2021 article includes information I’ve compiled from a variety of current sources. I’ve surely missed some valuable information. Please help me improve and update what I’ve shared via your comments below. Thank you!