The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is rapidly advancing across the globe despite drastic public and personal health measures. The worldwide death toll has passed 419,020. The number of confirmed cases is more than 7.5 million.
For people who live or work in tall buildings, taking an elevator feels riskier in the time of coronavirus. Even if we can avoid riding the elevator with other people, we are still riding with the viruses they left behind.
Transmission Hotspots
Elevators could be COVID-19 transmission hotspots. Coronaviruses can contaminate a single doorknob or elevator button and then spread through an entire office, hotel, or health care facility within two to four hours.
The coronavirus typically spreads when an infected person is in close proximity to others. The Coronavirus spreads through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Viral particles can also live on surfaces like plastic and stainless steel for days. It can also attach elevator buttons and escalator handrails, and be transferred through contact. That makes elevators in apartment buildings and offices risky. Many experts believe that airborne particles in empty elevators can pose a high risk when it comes to coronavirus.
The virus is also believed to spread by touching a contaminated surface and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth.
Talking loudly produces enough droplets to transmit the coronavirus to others, and the droplets can linger in the air for at least eight minutes. There is a substantial probability that normal speaking causes airborne virus transmission in confined environments.
Social Distancing
Social distancing puts space between people. When people who are infected with the virus stay away from others, they can't pass it to anyone else. This way, fewer people get sick at the same time. Social distancing is important because COVID-19 is most likely to spread from person-to-person through: direct close contact with a person while they are infectious or in the 24 hours before their symptoms appeared, close contact with a person with a confirmed infection who coughs or sneezes, or touching objects or surfaces (such as door handles or tables) contaminated from a cough or sneeze from a person with a confirmed infection, and then touching your mouth or face.
Research suggests the coronavirus spreads best in places where people are within 6 feet of one another, and in poorly ventilated indoor spaces. Unless the elevator is huge, it will be hard to keep 6 feet of social distance.
Elevator Buttons
A typical elevator button could be thriving with viruses, and bacteria. Though toilet seats are considered filthy because they are crawling with millions of disease causing germs, the elevator button touched by many people every day harbors nearly forty times more bacteria.
In a busy building, an elevator button can be touched by dozens of different people who will have come into contact with all kinds of microbes every hour. Even if the buttons are cleaned regularly, the potential for the build-up microbes is high. It is easy to see that in some environments, perhaps especially airports and hotels where there are thousands of people from different places regularly touching elevator buttons, that they could be a major potential point for cross-contamination and the spread of disease.
Viral particles could survive for days on elevator buttons. If you're riding by yourself, the risk is extremely low. But in a crowded office building, taking the elevator solo could be next to impossible. Of course, there's also the issue of button pushing. A person can get the coronavirus if they touch a surface or object that has viral particles on it and then touch their mouth, nose, or eyes.
Although the coronavirus's lifespan on different surfaces depends on the surrounding temperature, humidity, type of surface, and other factors, two studies found that it lasts longest on stainless steel and plastic. One study found that the coronavirus lasted up to seven days on those surfaces, which are common in elevators.
Hospital Elevators
Hospital-acquired infections are a substantial cause of morbidity and mortality. The point prevalence of nosocomial infection among hospital inpatients is estimated to be as high as 10%. Buttons in hospital elevators may be an additional under-recognized site of microbial contamination. Everyone is going to be pushing the same buttons with their hands. Up to a fifth of UK patients with COVID-19 in several hospitals contracted the disease over the course of the pandemic while already being treated there for another illness. Some of the infections were passed on by hospital staff who were unaware they had the virus and were displaying no symptoms, while patients with coronavirus were responsible for the others.
Elevator Air
Public elevators are an essential requirement in modern high-rise buildings. However, the confined, crowded interior of an elevator provides an ideal breeding ground for all manners of biological aerosols.
Another thing also is the elevator air; an infected person could be riding in it, and it could also infect the next person riding the elevator. Many elevators do not seem to have mechanical ventilation, like a fan, beyond the natural ventilation that occurs when the doors open and close. Some passenger elevators have ventilation holes as a minimum. The location of the holes is often not obvious since they are often hidden behind the raised panels with a grove in the backside of the edge of the panel to let the air exchange. The actual ventilation fan, however, is optional.
Several factors affect the ventilation of elevators, the size of the elevator, presence of ventilation system, the speed of the elevator between floors and the time interval doors stay open, allowing new air to mix in before the doors close again.
A study published in April also found live virus in the air in and around two hospitals in Wuhan, China. The highest concentrations were observed in confined areas with little air flow, such as in the air within the 9-square-foot toilet areas in patients' rooms, which were not ventilated. The amount of virus in the air in ventilated wards, however, was very low.
Tips For Elevator Riders During COVID-19
To lower infection risk inside elevators wear a mask .Avoid riding with another person. Avoid close contact, as elevator sizes vary, it is important to assess the number of riders before you enter. If you are able and have just a few floors to travel, take the stairs.
Maintain social distancing. If an elevator is crowded, wait for the next one. If you’re in an elevator that has hit a safe social distancing capacity and someone else tries to get on, calmly and politely ask them to wait for the next one.
Riders should clean hands often and avoid touching surfaces in the elevator. Don’t lean against the walls and don’t touch the handrails. Don’t directly touch buttons; cover fingers with a cloth or glove. Do wash your hands immediately after each trip.
Property managers should clean and ventilate elevators. Keep the elevator doors open to increase air ventilation during cleaning or when the elevator is not in use. Clean and disinfect frequently-touched surfaces, like floor selection buttons and handrails often. If surfaces are dirty, clean them prior to disinfection. Thoroughly disinfectant surfaces by using pre-moistened cleaning/disinfecting wipes once every hour.
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