Ultraviolet light can kill almost all the viruses
in a room. Why isn’t it everywhere?
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23972651/ultraviolet-disinfection-germicide-far-uv
Dylan Mathews notes:
The technology is called germicidal ultraviolet light (GUV), and in particular, a relatively novel kind of ultraviolet light often denoted as “far-UV.” “We have so much data suggesting that this is far and away the most impactful technology, when it comes to protecting people from infectious disease, that exists today,” says Kevin Esvelt, a professor and biologist at MIT who has championed the idea.
These advocates imagine a world in which far-UV lamps are set up in most large indoor spaces where people gather, emitting rays that kill airborne viruses and bacteria while leaving humans unharmed. If all goes according to plan, day cares will stop spreading around noroviruses and flus; hospital infections will plummet; elderly and immunocompromised people can gather openly, unmasked, without fearing they’ll catch something. In a world where the flu alone imposes an average of $11 billion in economic costs per year to the US and Covid has cost the United States on the order of $14 trillion, it’s a nearly utopian vision.
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23972651/ultraviolet-disinfection-germicide-far-uv
Dylan Mathews notes:
The technology is called germicidal ultraviolet light (GUV), and in particular, a relatively novel kind of ultraviolet light often denoted as “far-UV.” “We have so much data suggesting that this is far and away the most impactful technology, when it comes to protecting people from infectious disease, that exists today,” says Kevin Esvelt, a professor and biologist at MIT who has championed the idea.
These advocates imagine a world in which far-UV lamps are set up in most large indoor spaces where people gather, emitting rays that kill airborne viruses and bacteria while leaving humans unharmed. If all goes according to plan, day cares will stop spreading around noroviruses and flus; hospital infections will plummet; elderly and immunocompromised people can gather openly, unmasked, without fearing they’ll catch something. In a world where the flu alone imposes an average of $11 billion in economic costs per year to the US and Covid has cost the United States on the order of $14 trillion, it’s a nearly utopian vision.