Cerema, BPE Research Team, Nantes, France.
University of Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LOCIE, Chambéry, France.
Indoor Air. 2022 Aug;32(8):e13097. doi: 10.1111/ina.13097.
In a virus pandemic context, buildings ventilation has been recognized as a solution for preventing transmission of the virus in aerosolized form. The impact of the widespread recommendation of window opening and sealing door on ventilation circuits needs to be considered with a multizone approach. We modeled the airflow distribution in a building where people are isolating in a pandemic context, including one infected person. We analyzed the impact of opening the window and sealing the door in the quarantine room on exposures and probability of infection for occupants of the flat and of adjacent flats. In order to study the sensitivity of the results, we tested three ventilation systems: balanced, exhaust-only, and humidity-based demand-controlled, and several window- and door-opening strategies. When the door of the quarantine room is sealed, we observe that opening the window in the quarantine room always results in increased exposure and probability of infection for at least one other occupant, including in neighbors' apartments. When all internal doors are opened, we observe moderate impacts, with rather an increase of exposure of the occupants of the same apartments and of their probability of infection, and a decrease for the occupants located in other apartments. Based on the analysis on the airflows distribution in this case study, we conclude that sealing the internal door has more influence than opening the window of the quarantine room, whatever the ventilation system. We observe that this widespread recommendation to open the window of a quarantine room and to seal the door is based on the consideration of a single zone model. We illustrate the importance of moving from such a single zone approach to a multizone approach for quantifying ventilation and airing impacts in multizone buildings as residences in order to prevent epidemics of viruses such as SARS-CoV-2. It highlights the need of air leakage databases.
在病毒大流行的背景下，建筑物通风已被认为是防止病毒以气溶胶形式传播的一种解决方案。需要采用多区域方法来考虑广泛建议开窗和密封门对通风回路的影响。我们模拟了在大流行背景下人们隔离的建筑物中的气流分布，包括一名感染者。我们分析了在隔离室中打开窗户和密封门对公寓内和相邻公寓内居住者暴露和感染概率的影响。为了研究结果的敏感性，我们测试了三种通风系统：平衡式、排气式和基于湿度的需求控制式，以及几种窗户和门的开启策略。当隔离室的门被密封时，我们观察到隔离室打开窗户总是会增加至少一名其他居住者的暴露和感染概率，包括邻居的公寓。当所有内部门都打开时，我们观察到中等程度的影响，主要是同一公寓的居住者暴露和感染概率增加，而其他公寓的居住者暴露和感染概率减少。基于这种情况下的气流分布分析，我们得出的结论是，无论采用哪种通风系统，密封内部门的影响都大于打开隔离室的窗户。我们观察到，这种广泛建议打开隔离室的窗户并密封门的建议是基于对单个区域模型的考虑。我们说明了从这种单一区域方法向多区域方法转变的重要性，以便在多区域建筑物（如住宅）中量化通风和通风的影响，以防止 SARS-CoV-2 等病毒的流行。它强调了空气泄漏数据库的必要性。
