How The New York City Department of Education Prepared For Students, Teachers and Staff To Return Back To School Safely
The New York City Department of Education Challenge.
In March of 2020, schools around the country turned to remote learning in order to combat the spread of COVID-19. Remote learning proved to be difficult for many families as teachers, and operators strived to educate students at home. In the late summer of 2020, the NYCDOE started evaluating ways to get students, teachers, and staff back into the classroom for in-person learning as safely as possible.
After a thorough due diligence process, the NYCDOE chose Delos, a HealthWay partner, to provide air purification systems and procedures. The goal was to improve indoor air quality by providing HealthWay air purification systems for an additional safety measure in classrooms, nurses’ offices, administrative offices, and more across the school district’s ecosystem.
The solution for New York City Schools.
The NYCDOE learned about HealthWay Family of Brands through Delos, HealthWay’s strategic partner in the education realm. The school district’s decision to partner with Delos was made in response to the mounting evidence suggesting that small, aerosolized particles that may carry SARS-CoV-2 can remain suspended in air and can persist indoors in aerosol form for up to several hours. Many experts consider air purification systems to be a critical approach to reducing transmission rates in indoor spaces, as they help reduce the number of airborne particles that may be carrying the virus. The “Delos Powered by Healthway” air purification units can capture ultrafine particles and can reduce the number of particles that carry airborne bacteria and viruses.
For more than eight years, Delos has fostered research collaborations with leading medical institutions, including a collaboration with Mayo Clinic on the Well Living Lab, the first human-centered research facility dedicated to researching the indoor environment’s impact on human health.
Both Delos and HealthWay made recommendations for air purifiers throughout each classroom in the district. The NYC DOE chose two Compact units per classroom. Each of the two units was mounted on opposite sides of the classroom to help reduce the particle load within the space and to provide extra air changes per hour. By implementing two Compact units per classroom also helped reduce the noise level so it wouldn’t be counterproductive to the learning environment.
The NYC DOE has continued to lead the way by implementing a robust safety plan to reduce the spread of airborne infectious particulates like COVID-19 in their classrooms. As more students and teachers return to school across the county, they are looking to HealthWay to continue providing a solution for a safer learning environment.
To date, there are 180,000+ HealthWay air purifiers throughout the NYC DOE ecosystem.
Contributed by “Delos Living LLC”
Delos is a global wellness leader with a mission to enhance health and well-being in the spaces where we live, work, learn, and play. Built on a ground-breaking collaboration between experts across building and health sciences, Delos develops products, programs, and solutions that transform our environments into vehicles for health, well-being, performance, and resilience. This is not a retail store.
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