Effects of COVID-19 measures on ventilation in secondary schools in the Netherlands

Conference paper (2023)

Authors

Er Ding Environmental & Climate Design - Architecture and the Built Environment
D. Zhang Environmental & Climate Design - Architecture and the Built Environment
C. Garcia Sanchez Urban Data Science - Architecture and the Built Environment
P.M. Bluyssen Environmental & Climate Design - Architecture and the Built Environment
Research Group
Environmental & Climate Design (Architecture and the Built Environment) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2023 Er Ding, D. Zhang, C. Garcia Sanchez, P.M. Bluyssen
Ventilation Children Indoor air quality COVID-19 pandemic Classroom
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Published Date

2023

Language

English

Reuse Rights

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Faculty

Architecture and the Built Environment

Department

Architectural Engineering +Technology

Research Group

Environmental & Climate Design

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of ventilation for ensuring occupants’ health was widely stressed, especially for densely occupied places such as schools (Ding et al, 2022). Correspondingly, new protocols of ventilation were implemented in school buildings among many countries and regions. In the Netherlands, school classrooms were first required to keep the windows and doors open, and later after a national lockdown more stringent measures such as reducing student occupancy were introduced. Previous studies have already shown that the ventilation in a large portion of school classrooms did not meet the requirement (National Ventilation Coordination Team, 2020). However, what are the actual effects of the COVID-19 measures on ventilation in school classrooms remains unclear.

This study aims to investigate 1) the ventilation sufficiency, and 2) the ventilation-related effects of temporary pandemic control and prevention measures in school classrooms under the COVID-19 pandemic.