Coronavirus 2020 UK

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With thousands of people now working from home or prevented from travelling, many commercial buildings are moving into shutdown mode. 

This has huge implications for building services equipment and decisions that would normally have been planned over many months must now be taken within days. Owners, landlords and tenants will still need to maintain their buildings for security purposes; to achieve statutory compliance; and to protect the fabric and critical systems as well as satisfying any insurance implications.

 
One aspect that has been unclear is exactly how long Sars-CoV-2, the name of the virus that causes the disease Covid-19, can survive outside the human body. Some studies on other coronaviruses, including Sars and Mers, found they can survive on metal, glass and plastic for as long as nine days, unless they are properly disinfected. Some can even hang around for up to 28 days in low temperatures.

Coronaviruses are well known to be particularly resilient in terms of where they can survive. And researchers are now beginning to understand more about how this affects the spread of the new coronavirus.

When the time does come for companies to start re-occupying their buildings there are a number of factors that need to be considered with regards to the environmental systems: – 

 
1. Were the buildings environmental systems mothballed correctly? 

2. Has the maintenance been carried out in line with the FAGS regulations? 

3. Are the filters clean and pathogen free?