EXP COVID-19 Offices White Paper

Background In January 2020, The World Health Organization (WHO) issued information on the large coronavirus outbreak in China. The virus responsible for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) . (2) The initial assumption by the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were that this new virus had transmission characteristics of similar type and magnitude to the virus SARS-CoV-1, which caused the global SARS outbreak in 2003. That outbreak subsided after nine months resulting in about 8,000 infected cases in 26 countries. Those cases occurred mostly in healthcare settings. By the end of January 2020, scientists determined COVID-19 had considerably higher human-to-human transmission rates. On February 16, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). On March 12, 2020, WHO proclaimed COVID-19 a pandemic. (2,3) At that time, there were more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths. As of August 31, 2020, there are over 25 million cases of COVID-19 reported by John Hopkins University between 188 countries and over 847,292 deaths worldwide. (4) In the United States, prominent public health agencies urged individuals and communities across the country to stay at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Many states issued lockdown orders for their residents, with some easing into phased re- opening plans in May 2020. With these orders requiring residents to stay indoors, except for essential workers or by following outlines issues by local and/ or national guidelines, many businesses have been impacted and a significant financial crisis has ensued. As businesses look to reopen open spaces and maintain safe operations, many are asking what the future will bring.

Figure 1. States that issued stay-at-home orders (5)

We are advising our clients to consider another important question: What engineering interventions may be applied to minimize the spread of the disease?

SOLUTIONS TO EFFECTIVELY COMBAT COVID-19 IN OFFICES

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