{"id":12666,"date":"2025-07-02T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=12666"},"modified":"2025-07-01T10:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T14:50:10","slug":"air-filtration-systems-do-not-stop-you-from-getting-covid-study-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=12666","title":{"rendered":"Air filtration systems do not stop you from getting COVID, study warns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

StudyFinds<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NORWICH, United Kingdom \u2014<\/strong> Air filtration systems do not diminish the chances of illness, contradicting their rise in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research reveals. The study calls into question the effectiveness of these systems in preventing viral infections, labeling the results as \u201cdisappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAir cleaners are designed to filter pollutants or contaminants out of the air that passes through them. When the COVID pandemic hit, many large companies and governments \u2013 including the NHS, the British military, and New York City and regional German governments \u2013 investigated installing this type of technology in a bid to reduce airborne virus particles<\/a> in buildings and small spaces,\u201d says Professor Paul Hunter from the University of East Anglia. \u201cBut air treatment technologies can be expensive. So it\u2019s reasonable to weigh up the benefits against costs, and to understand the current capabilities of such technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research team examined a variety of technologies, including air filtration<\/a> and ionizers. They reviewed 32 real-world studies \u2014 spanning settings like schools<\/a> and care homes \u2014 that assessed the impact of air treatment technologies on the incidence of microbial infections<\/a> and related symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe kinds of technologies that we considered included filtration, germicidal lights<\/a>, ionizers, and any other way of safely removing viruses<\/a> or deactivating them in breathable air,\u201d says Dr. Julii Brainard, the study\u2019s lead researcher, in a university release<\/a>. \u201cIn short, we found no strong evidence that air treatment technologies are likely to protect people in real-world settings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite some air treatment strategies, particularly germicidal lights and HEPA<\/a> filtration, demonstrating effectiveness in reducing environmental<\/a> and surface contamination, they did not correlate with a decrease in illness rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was some weak evidence that the air treatment methods reduced the likelihood of infection, but this evidence seems biased and imbalanced. We strongly suspect that there were some relevant studies with very minor or no effect but these were never published,\u201d adds Dr. Brainard. \u201cOur findings are disappointing \u2013 but it is vital that public health<\/a> decision-makers have a full picture. Hopefully, those studies that have been done during COVID<\/a> will be published soon and we can make a more informed judgment about what the value of air treatment may have been during the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study<\/a> is published in the journal Preventive Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

StudyFinds NORWICH, United Kingdom \u2014 Air filtration systems do not diminish the chances of illness, contradicting their rise in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research reveals. The study calls into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1269,101,149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-filtration","category-covid-19","category-epidemiology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12667,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666\/revisions\/12667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}