Can AC spread coronavirus? A thorny question that emerges with school reopening

As many students are expected to go back to school, people began asking whether air conditioning is safe to use in the COVID-19 pandemic. Gettyimagebank

By Kim Se-jeong

As students are expected to go back to school later this month and study through the summer to catch up with what they missed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the biggest questions is whether air conditioning is safe to use.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Education released a guideline to keep all windows at least one-third open at all times while running air conditioning.

"At the moment, experts view using air conditioning is okay as long as the room is ventilated frequently," Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), said during a press conference, Wednesday.

Yet she added, "A Chinese research team raised a possibility of the device contributing to droplet transmission. That needs more research and experimentation to be verified. For now, experts consider that a possibility. We are collecting opinions from experts on the use of air conditioning and will be able to give guidelines."

In a research letter published in the U.S. Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal, a Chinese team of researchers traced 10 COVID-19 patients who all dined in an air-conditioned restaurant in January in Guangzhou, China, and found one diner who had visited Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, transmitted the virus to other dines via airflow of the air conditioner.

"We conclude that in this outbreak, droplet transmission was prompted by air-conditioned ventilation. The key factor for infection was the direction of the airflow… To prevent spread of COVID-19 in restaurants, we recommend strengthening temperature-monitoring surveillance, increasing the distance between tables and improving ventilation," according to the research team.

It's not just the question for students and their parents. Air conditioners are a common household appliance in Korea ― they have become particularly important to get through the summers which have been getting hotter as a consequence of global warming. Global research centers forecast this summer will be the hottest on record.

Together with air conditioning, many wonder about the safety of air purifiers. The KCDC head's advice was to avoid using it for now.

"In terms of air purifiers, the key is filter management. We had an opinion that if the filter is polluted with virus, it can promote infection. We're collecting more expert opinions and will share our findings with the public soon," Jung said.

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