Although we have an immune system with an amazing ability to learn to deal with pathogens our species is unfamiliar with, the initial shock still takes its toll. Building immunity is usually a process in which weakened or genetically predisposed individuals mostly lose their health or life.
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The situation is complicated by our close relationship with animals and their environments, and also because cities have begun to expand, making contact with wild animals be more frequent. This means that encountering new challenges, in the form of unknown pathogens, is not uncommon and that is why new diseases appear year after year or “emerging”.
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However, epidemics and pandemics have left us learning throughout history. The most significant of the COVID-19 pandemic is the need to implement a culture of breathing cleaner air indoors.
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To prevent the transmission of diseases, we have established in our history, sometimes by intuition and others with full intention, the use of clean water, drainage, personal hygiene, distancing and vaccinations. That has allowed our societies to grow their groups from hundreds to thousands of people and, in recent centuries, to millions.
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Once humanity was organized in cities, first epidemics and then pandemics have been recurrent. These used to take the lives of huge proportions of people. For example, in the 14th century, the Black Death claimed the lives of between a third and a half of the population of Europe. Similar situations have been experienced with epidemics of smallpoxmeasles, typhoid and cholera in the world.
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In Latin America we have already had these learnings. Just a couple of decades ago, the cholera epidemic He left us with a greater culture of drinking clean water and food in better condition. Thanks also to this, diseases that plagued the continent, such as typhoid, have been reduced to levels close to elimination.
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Today, in the face of this epidemic, it is already accepted that the main transmission mechanism of COVID-19 is not direct contact or splashes of saliva at close range, but Aerosols that occur when we speak, cough, sneeze and even when we breathe. These aerosols travel long distances in enclosed spaces and can even spread and infect from one floor to another in buildings. poorly ventilated.
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We tend to meet in spaces that are actually closed boxes. Normally it is with the aim of keeping the temperature controlled and reducing the energy cost of heating or air conditioning, so the changes that we will need in architecture and engineering for this new hygiene will not be easy. But it is time to start thinking and implementing them.
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The need to breathe clean air, opening windows and modifying ventilation of closed spaces It is not a new idea and we will have to revisit approaches made in years prior to the pandemic: historically the need for larger spaces with good ventilation has been pointed out.
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The term “sick building syndrome” is old and is used when the occupants of a property have poor health linked to the time they spend there. Although a specific cause is not usually identified, we do know that it has to do with the quality of the air that the tenants breathe.
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In hospitals we have now managed to have special areas and personal protective equipment that protect against potentially infectious aerosols. But since we can never know precisely who carries a pathogenic agent, these precautions will have to become universal, since we cannot maintain the current scheme, in which some breathe clean air and others do not.
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These months have shown us that governments and society must invest more in the health sector to have a better primary medical care system, more and better intensive care units, and a sufficient supply of oxygen and a reserve of mechanical ventilators. And that the States should worry about producing their own vaccines.
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They have also shown us that sterilizing mats, cleaning products when they arrive from the supermarket, or sanitizing tunnels are useless to combat COVID-19. But, above all, that we should breathe cleaner air when we meet indoors. If we do not learn these lessons, the next pandemic, which will come sooner or later, will cause us again the unnecessary burden of disease and death that the current one has dealt us.
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