Indoor CO2 – Permissable Levels to Control Transmission – Jun 23

“In a typical inpatient setting, on the other hand, the required indoor CO2 concentration is below 540 ppm with no mask, 770 ppm with a surgical mask, and 8200 ppm with an N95 mask. These findings facilitate the establishment of a strategy for preventing airborne transmission in hospitals. This study is unique in that it suggests the development of an airborne transmission model with indoor CO2 and application of the model to actual clinical practice. Organizations and individuals can efficiently recognize the risk of SARS-CoV-2 airborne transmission in a room and thus take preventive measures such as maintaining good ventilation, wearing masks, or shortening the exposure time to an infected individual by simply using a CO2 monitor.”

Link to research paper

The above approach appears to assume infectiousness in proportion to occupancy. There are some scenarios where the CO2 – risk relationship is more nuanced, courtesy of engineer Joey Fox – https://twitter.com/joeyfox85/status/1670581068682936322

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