Ms Orla Hegarty:

As for schools, the age of the school building obviously has an impact. A lot of older schools built before perhaps the 1970s were designed with the memory of TB still alive. They have good cross-ventilation, higher ceilings and more space. A lot of that has been squeezed down and engineered out, I think, and some of those older buildings may have had retrofits involving sealed windows and partitions and other things, which have made them more dangerous. What the schools did between August and Christmas was very commendable in that they were really the only ones to take this seriously in the autumn. However, in the absence of any way of measuring safe air quality, the schools probably over-ventilated in a lot of cases, that is, they opened all the windows and the classrooms were very cold and uncomfortable because school management did not know when to stop. If we provide CO2 monitoring in schools, we can find a happy balance because we can assess in real time whether risk conditions are rising. Then we can open the windows for 15 minutes or take the class outside for 15 minutes, prevent risk and keep people comfortable. That is the only option for next winter because children will not be vaccinated, so the schools need a plan for autumn and it needs to start immediately to be in place by winter. The nursing homes probably fit in that category as well.

As for retail and hospitality, all buildings can be made safe. Once we start measuring, we can target the risks. Clearly, many buildings are low-risk because, otherwise, the pandemic would be even worse. The issue, therefore, is how we find the conditions that are dangerous and deal with them. This is not perceptible to humans. I was in a large building yesterday with a CO2 monitor. It felt reasonably comfortable at all times, yet when I looked at my CO2 monitor the reading went from safe to unsafe within five minutes in a different part of the building. That would not have been perceptible to anybody not carrying a monitor to check air conditions. As humans, we cannot guess at this, no more than we can guess at safe water. We need to start monitoring. People do not stay very long in retail environments and they wear masks, so the key issue in retail is to keep the numbers low, keep the air moving and protect the staff, particularly those who are there for longer periods and perhaps using back areas, storerooms and break rooms where they take off masks. They can be the danger areas.

Hospitality is probably the most challenging sector, but that is not to say it cannot be dealt with. It is the most challenging because people sit close together across a table, breathe the same air, tend to stay a long time and do not wear masks and a lot of buildings have been adapted and changed over the years and tables can be very close together. Every building needs to be looked at differently and individually within a framework of good advice on the spacing of tables, particularly filtration and localised filtration to tables, which may be a good option for restaurants. That is the HEPA filtration we spoke about earlier. It basically comprises just a fan and a filter which cleans virus particles and other particles from the air continuously while people are in the room. Then it is a matter of taking particular care of staff, back areas, toilets and cold rooms. The means by which people travel to hospitality environments can be as high-risk as the actual building they enter.