Tracking carbon dioxide levels indoors is an inexpensive and powerful way to monitor the risk of people getting COVID-19, according to new research from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the University of Colorado Boulder. In any given indoor environment, when excess CO2 levels double, the risk of transmission also roughly doubles. Infectious people exhale airborne viruses at the same time as they exhale carbon dioxide. That means CO2 can serve as a “proxy” for the number of viruses in the air. researchers around the world have been searching for a way to continually monitor COVID-19 infection risk indoors. but commercially available carbon dioxide monitors, which can cost just a few hundred dollars can do the same indirectly.
— source University of Colorado at Boulder | Apr 7, 2021
