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Why stores need to pay more attention to the air we breathe

CNN – “During the coronavirus pandemic, supermarkets and retail stores have added a variety of safety features. Workers have been required to mask up and, more recently, most customers too. But most have yet to tackle what could be another important safety measure — changes to the systems that keep the stores hot and cold, and that can potentially recirculate air carrying the virus that employees and customers alike breathe. Now, as the virus continues to tear through the country with few signs of abating, the air in stores is coming under closer scrutiny. Some epidemiologists, engineers and labor leaders hope that changing air filtration — a longer-term intervention that requires more financial investment — in stores during the pandemic will help protect against coronavirus spread, as well as indoor air pollution, not to mention any future airborne pathogens humanity may face. In early July, after the World Health Organization released a report that acknowledged the virus could possibly be spread through the air in crowded indoor spaces, upgrading air filters in stores became a larger focus for unions and other industry groups…Grocery and retail stores can be hosts to coronavirus spread because they are indoors and often crowded. Indoor spaces are riskier than outdoor spaces because it can be harder to keep people at least six feet apart and ventilation is not as good as it is outdoors, the CDC says…”

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