How Architectural Defects Pose Risks During a Pandemic
Today, we sit down with Dr. Michael Gormley, the director of the Institute for Sustainable Building Design and the director of the Water Academy at Heriot-Watt University, in Scotland. In this episode, we discuss Dr. Gormley’s paper published in Lancet Global Health titled "COVID-19: Mitigating Transmission via Wastewater Plumbing Systems”.
Thanks for joining us for this wonderful opportunity to learn from one of the leading researchers on the COVID pandemic. Enjoy!
Talking Points:
- About this podcast and our mission (0:00)
- The link between defects in wastewater plumbing systems and transmission pathways of disease (1:45)
- Why protections against transmissions are important- especially for highly populated facilities (4:04)
- The current state of wastewater systems on a design level (5:54)
- How exactly do diseases like COVID and SARS transmit VIA wastewater plumbing? (7:09)
- The reality of transmission during a pandemic 7:54
- Recommendations to combat the transmission of pathogens (9:02)
- A message to health care workers (10:41)
- The factors that determine the level of risk (11:37)
- Defects in wastewater plumbing during SARS (12:12)