Ventilation is important for more than just preventing the spread of COVID-19

In a gym in Virginia, a carbon dioxide monitor helps the owner, and the gym goers, understand the risk of COVID-19 transmission in that space. Carbon dioxide levels are a proxy for how well-ventilated the gym is and thus how many COVID-19-containing aerosols might be floating around indoor air if someone inside is contagious. If CO2 levels are high, “it means that people’s exhaled breath is accumulating in that room, and their respiratory aerosols are also accumulating,” says Linsey Marr, an expert on the airborne transmission of viruses and a member of that gym who helped it reopen safely. “If someone is infected, those could contain virus.”

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