Nine people became infected – even though they were sitting far apart
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Are air conditioning systems dangerous virus throwers? New research from China shows a terrifying finding in this regard. Nine people fell ill with Covid-19 after eating in a windowless restaurant next to an infected but asymptomatic person. The incident occurred in January in the metropolis of Guangzhou. That says hygiene expert Dr. Georg-Christian Zinn on top of that!
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“We know about air conditioning infections”
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Nine people become infected with the corona virus in Guangzhou, China when they visit a restaurant – even though they were all several meters apart. A research team now suspects that the restaurant’s air conditioning system has distributed the virus droplets of the infected person in the room. This allowed the viruses to travel a greater distance than normal through the system.
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The scientists explain this contagion in a research report in the journal “Emerging Infectious Diseases”. Do we have to worry about this phenomenon in Germany too? “We know infections from air conditioning systems,” reports hygiene expert Dr. Georg-Christian Zinn. “We know, for example, legionella in water-borne bacteria. There was a case in the United States where bacteria were atomized using an air conditioning system and then made hotel residents sick and let them die.”
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Air conditioning systems in Germany are heavily regulated
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But exactly these cases would have led to enormous improvements in the systems. Accordingly, the air conditioning systems that we have in Germany are subject to really very strong regulations, on the one hand with regard to construction and on the other hand with regard to maintenance, according to the hygienist. “A normal air conditioning system in a bank or like here in the laboratory has at least two filter levels,” he explains. “And if an air conditioning system has been built and maintained according to the rules of technology, there is certainly no danger in Germany.” Even if there was no 100% security here, he emphasized: “In general, the air conditioning systems in Germany are safe.”
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Please do not cough into fans
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Particularly in medical facilities, the pandemic had been meticulously checked to see if there were any threats. “Whether this air conditioning system in China, which is now supposed to have caused this infection, was poorly maintained, malfunctioned or just a terribly old model,” he cannot say.
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And what about fans? “With fans, caution is advised that one should of course not sneeze into it and cough into it,” because in this case the virus can of course be spread throughout the room, the expert tells us.
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Video playlist: everything you need to know about the corona virus
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NEW SEQUENCE: RTL.de documentary “Zero Hour – Race with the Virus: What do we learn from the crisis?”
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