With flu season in full swing, it’s essential to consider how to protect your employees and customers. Our indoor air disinfection solutions can help fight the flu in your building. We use advanced UV light technology to address flu viruses and other germs in the air you breathe. In this article, we’ll discuss how our disinfection solutions use UV light to reduce the risk of flu infection in your building.
For the most sophisticated solution for UV light air disinfection on the market, contact our team to learn more.
Indoor Air Disinfection Solutions: Important for Fighting the Flu
Influenza, also known as flu, is a type of virus that can quickly infect people and spread. You’ve probably had the flu in your life at one point or another. Some of the symptoms include:
- Fever
- Chills
- Cough
- Muscle/body aches
- Headaches
- Fatigue
Each year, the flu season starts around the beginning of fall and lasts through the winter. Most years, flu activity peaks between December and February when many people are out and about and congregating with loved ones.
Many people every year are hospitalized for flu complications, and many even die. There are several vulnerable populations that may be particularly prone to serious complications, including children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with certain health conditions.
Public buildings like grocery stores, retail shops, restaurants, as well as places like airports, schools, and hospitals can all be breeding grounds for the flu. At any given time, several infected people may be inside the building, and these spaces experience a significant amount of traffic every day. The result is a high risk for flu transmission to both employees and visitors. That’s why indoor air disinfection solutions are so important for spaces open to the public. With air disinfection, fewer people may get sick and it may even prevent unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths.
How Influenza Spreads
To understand why indoor air disinfection solutions are so important, let’s talk about how the flu spreads. Different germs spread in different ways before causing sickness. When it comes to the flu, it can spread through respiratory droplets from infected people breathing. These droplets can also be much smaller and create aerosols. Finally, the droplets can land on surfaces where people can also become infected after touching the virus and then touching their eyes, nose, or mouth.
While every year we’re all urged by various health organizations to wash our hands for flu prevention, surface transmission is actually pretty low. Most cases of flu spread through the air, either through droplets or aerosols. Droplets are larger and heavier, so they stay suspended in the air for a shorter amount of time. However, they can get into the mouths and noses of people close by to the person. Aerosols are smaller and lighter, so they stay suspended in the air for longer, even several hours, which can infect a good many people in a public space.
As such, indoor air disinfection solutions can help fight off these germ particles in the air to reduce the risk of people getting sick from breathing in the flu virus. Since most transmission is airborne, the flu season is a critical time every year where property owners need to consider how they’re keeping the air in their buildings safe.
Effectiveness of Flu Vaccines
Now, you may be thinking, “Everyone should just get the flu vaccine and that will fix it.” However, you would probably be wrong. While the flu vaccine does help prevent the flu, it’s not 100% effective. Even if everyone could get the flu vaccine (which many people cannot), it likely wouldn’t stop all flu cases.
The influenza virus evolves pretty rapidly, with several new strains emerging each year. Scientists develop the vaccine based on predictions of which strains will be most popular in a given season. These predictions are sometimes quite accurate and other times less so. Generally, the flu vaccine only reduces the risk of getting the flu by 40% to 60% when the vaccine is a good match to the circulating viruses, according to the CDC.
Many people still get the flu even after getting a vaccine. While vaccinated people usually are less at risk for serious complications, this is still important to note. So, while vaccinations are an important part of a multi-layered approach to reducing flu transmission, it’s not the end-all-be-all. In your building, you can start attacking flu viruses at the source with indoor air disinfection solutions that kill virus particles before they can make people sick.
How UV Light Disinfection Works Against Flu Viruses
So, what do our indoor air disinfection solutions do, exactly? We use UV light disinfection technology to kill germs that float in the air. We’ve known for over a century that ultraviolet rays are effective at killing germs. UV rays can essentially unravel the DNA in germs like viruses and bacteria so they become basically harmless. While you might think of this as killing the germ, it’s actually known in the scientific community as germ inactivation. This process makes it so germs like the flu virus can’t infect people and continue to spread.
Because the UV rays attack the virus DNA, it can fight against all strains of influenza. Therefore, it can reduce the risk of getting the flu even from virus strains that the vaccines don’t address.
UV light has been used as a disinfectant for years for things like drinking water and medical equipment. Recent studies have found that UV light is effective at inactivating the flu virus as it floats through the air. This can seriously cut down on the number of people who become infected and get sick. In turn, this helps reduce hospitalizations and deaths. For your employees, it can even reduce absenteeism due to illness.
What to Know About Indoor Air Disinfection Solutions from Farlite
Our advanced indoor air disinfection solutions help inactivate a wide range of germs and viruses, including influenza, COVID-19, and other serious illness-causing germs. Our UV light disinfection devices can help you fight the flu and other common sicknesses in your building to protect your employees and customers.
How UVPhasors Work as Indoor Air Disinfection Solutions
Our UVPhasor devices use UVC disinfection, a powerful type of UV light that is more powerful against germs. UVPhasors disinfect the upper air by creating a powerful disinfection barrier that inactivates germs without any human exposure to the UV light. This allows for continuous indoor air disinfection solutions even as people are working, shopping, or otherwise moving around your space. We use zero harsh chemicals like traditional disinfectants and the UVPhasor is better than 99.9% effective at killing germs.
Additionally, our devices offer continuous monitoring of conditions to ensure optimized disinfection. For example, some studies have found that UVC disinfection is less effective in high humidity environments. UVPhasor devices can detect high humidity and make autonomous adjustments to boost efficacy. So, you get peace of mind that your building is always protected.
Indoor Air Disinfection Solutions – Protect Your Building with Farlite
Keep your customers and employees safe this flu season with Farlite. Our UVPhasors are an effective way to kill viruses, bacteria, and other germs floating in the air you breathe and provide you with constant indoor air disinfection. We customize every system to your exact needs based on your building so you know you’re getting maximum protection. Become a Farlite Protected building today by contacting us to request a proposal.