The Solution
Taza Aya protects against airborne germs differently.
High quality, well-fitting face masks are known as respirators. They were created to protect persons from breathing in particles in dusty environments by filtering them out. However, airborne germs have some important differences:
- Germs - particularly viruses - are often smaller than dust particles. For particles that small, breathing through a filter sacrifices comfort for protection.
- Germs - particularly viruses - do not remain infectious in air forever. In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Oswin et al. showed that that after 20 minutes in air, about 90% of SARS-CoV-2 aerosols are no longer infectious, with a large proportion of the decrease occurring in the first 5 minutes.
The longer it takes for an airborne virus to be carried by the air to an indoor air purifier or HVAC filter, the less infectious the virus will be once it gets there. If an airborne virus is no longer infectious by the time it gets filtered from the air, exactly how much protection is being provided by filtering the air?
Germs are a different kind of air pollutant. Protecting against them should involve a different kind of approach.