Elevators are supposed to be a convenient way to get to higher floors quickly. In times of the corona pandemic, however, you could get infected in the poorly ventilated cabins. Should you run instead? Although the anti-corona measures were also adapted when using elevators relatively early in the pandemic, the image of the narrow drive with Health Minister Jens Spahn and Hesse’s Prime Minister Volker Bouffier, who became known as the “elevator gate”, sparked a lively discussion Country from. For the passengers, the overcrowded cabin apparently had no consequences for their health.

That probably had something to do with the fact that everyone in the elevator wore mouth and nose covers, because elevators were considered to be real germs even before the corona pandemic. In the narrow, often poorly ventilated, sometimes cool cabins, various pathogens can survive for hours, sometimes even weeks. Noroviruses, for example, persist for weeks on the buttons that many people use every day. An unbridled sneeze during an elevator ride in a full cabin would be enough to infect all other passengers with rhinoviruses, for example, which cause cold symptoms.

Robust pathogen How long does coronavirus survive on skin?

But the times of full elevators should be over in the corona pandemic. According to the Corona measures, a maximum of two people may be in a normal cabin during a trip. The two should also keep a maximum distance from each other and wear a mouth and nose covering. But despite all the measures, you are not one hundred percent protected against infection in the elevator, whether with Sars-CoV-2, cold, flu or noroviruses. Since many people are dependent on the use of elevators, especially in hospitals, clinics or doctor’s surgeries, the risk of infection is particularly high here. The more people use a lift, the greater the risk of infection. In the case of Sars-CoV-2, suspended particles, so-called aerosols, in which the viruses are located, play an essential role in the transmission. Aerosols can stay in the air for several hours in poorly ventilated rooms. Researchers at the University of Amsterdam therefore wanted to know how the risk of Sars-CoV-2 transmission in elevators can be effectively reduced. To do this, they first simulated a person’s one-time cough in an elevator cabin with a spray can that also released the corresponding aerosols. The doors were also opened for 10 to 20 percent of the study period, as with a normal elevator ride, and remained closed for the rest of the time. The aerosols were made visible with the help of laser light.

Compared to the influenza virus, the coronavirus remains active on the skin for hours

The research team led by Cees van Rijn saw that it takes 12 to 18 minutes for all the floating particles to sink to the ground. However, if the lift stopped with the doors closed, it could take up to 30 minutes for the potentially infectious aerosols to sink. This means that even an empty lift could become an infection trap if someone infected with Sars-CoV-2 has spoken, coughed or enjoyed it beforehand. Even if the researchers state that in this case ten to thousands of RNA copies of Sars-CoV-2 could be picked up per minute, the question remains whether this is enough to really become infected. Because so far nobody can say from which virus dose you actually become infected. However, there is evidence that a higher dose is associated with a more severe course of Covid-19. Nevertheless, the researchers confirm a potential Sars-CoV-2 infection risk in elevators. Wearing mouth and nose covers or filtering masks can reduce this risk. In addition, if possible, avoid talking, coughing or sneezing in elevators. Elevators could also be set up by the service staff so that they “wait” with the doors open. This change could reduce the shelf life of the aerosols to two to four minutes, according to the researchers, whose results were published in the journal “Indoor Air”.
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The risk of infection can also be reduced by ventilating the cabins. On the one hand, elevators should continue to be ventilated even when they are at a standstill; So far, so the researchers, in most hospital elevators, the air is sucked from the cabin into the elevator shaft, the researchers write in a communication from the university. If you simply reverse the direction, the potentially infectious aerosols could be pushed to the ground much faster. By the way: Anyone who thinks that they can avoid the infection by simply taking the stairs is wrong. Stairwells are no less dangerous. Experts emphasize that the size of stairwells and corridors is less important than their ventilation. If you still prefer to walk, you should avoid touching the railing.

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