Toronto residents will soon be able to rent a carbon dioxide (CO2) monitor at the public library as part of the city’s pandemic response.
In April, the city of Peterborough became the first municipality in North America to facilitate such a program: lending CO2 monitors to residents for one week at a time so they could determine the quality of air ventilation in home, office or other indoor places. spaces.
The devices use a “traffic light system,” officials said at the time. A green light means that the air quality in the space is good, yellow means it is fine and red means there is little ventilation in the area.
The higher the CO2 levels in space, the more recycled air an individual will inhale.
“Good ventilation and filtration are important because they help decrease the risk of disease by reducing the levels of aerosols contained in viruses and bacteria, and other air quality problems, which can make us sick, including the virus that causes COVID- 19 “, said Dr. Thomas. Piggott, Peterborough’s official health doctor, said in a statement in April.
Piggott added that it is relatively easy to reduce CO2 levels if residents get a high result. Actions such as opening windows, reducing the number of people in a room, and using air filtration devices will help increase air ventilation. The use of a mask will also help eliminate possible air pollutants.
Almost at the same time that the Peterborough program was launched, some residents contacted the Toronto Public Library to ask if they planned to do something similar. At the time, officials told social media that they were contacted by organizations interested in donating CO2 monitors and that the updates would come later.
Months later, a formal program appears to be underway.
In a tweet posted on July 2, the library said it plans to introduce a CO2 monitoring program in mid-July and that more information is expected “in the coming weeks.”
We will introduce a CO2 monitor loan program in mid-July in response to a pandemic. Find out more in the coming weeks! -PK
– Toronto Public Library (@torontolibrary) July 2, 2022
CTV News Toronto has contacted the library for more details.
CO2 monitors have been widely used throughout the pandemic, though not consistently. In 2021, Quebec’s education minister said monitors would be installed in all classrooms.
However, when an Ontario Public Health Unit tried to enforce a policy in which any classroom with a CO2 reading of more than 800 parts per million received an additional HEPA air filter, the province’s medical director of health he said the experts “were not currently aware”. of any correlation between CO2 levels and viral transmission “.
The use of CO2 monitoring has been widely tested in scientific journals as a tool to measure the risk of COVID-19 infection.