Experts believe that the rising temperatures in June have sent more people flocking toward air-conditioned indoor spaces. “As people go indoors in hot weather and the rebreathed air fraction goes up, the risk of infection is quite dramatic,” Edward Nardell, MD, professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told The Harvard Gazette.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Nardell has found that there’s a direct correlation between outbreak areas and hotter weather, saying that “the states that, in June, are already using a lot of air conditioning because of high temperatures are also the places where there [have] been greater increases in the spread of COVID-19, suggesting more time indoors as temperatures rise.” He also remarked that ironically, the same risk factor is created during the colder months when people again flee indoors to stay warm. Nardell cites other studies about air conditioning potentially spreading COVID-19, including a restaurant in Wuhan, China, and an apartment building in Hong Kong. The throngs of bar patrons in southern states documented on social media may have been subjected to the same recirculated air conditions over the past month, increasing their likelihood of coronavirus exposure. RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter. “Restaurants [and bars] are one of the most dangerous places [because they] use mixing ventilation, in which air conditioning systems try to stir room air as much as possible,” Qingyan Chen, PhD, a Purdue University professor researching virus transmission through ventilation, previously told Best Life. “Thus, droplets in restaurants would be uniformly distributed. That is not a great scenario.” And for another activity to avoid right now, check out: Most COVID-19 Patients Did This One Thing Before Getting Sick, Study Finds.
