COVID update for facilities
Our facilities team continues to monitor CDC, ASHRAE, and local health department protocols for building air quality and sanitization. We also engaged a professional engineering company to provide counsel on the best practices for air quality.
For building cleanliness and sanitization, the Facilities Management Custodial unit will continue using the Aqueous Ozone sanitization best practice approach. Aqueous Ozone is a powerful oxidizer proven to clean effectively, destroying a host of germs, bacteria, and other contaminants on surfaces, which helps to deodorize and sanitize them. The application of the antimicrobial, Microbecare is still effective on surfaces and at frequent touchpoints. This product creates a covalent bond with surfaces, aids in continually eliminating microbial growth, and provides protection from a variety of pathogens. The Custodial team will continue to place an extra emphasis on sanitizing frequent touchpoints.
For building air quality, our consulting engineer recommends continuing the use of bipolarization equipment, "purge" air between occupied periods, and continuation of disabling the demand-controlled ventilation feature. These HVAC system protocols are in compliance with national standards and follow best practices to maintain temperature and humidity design setpoints as well as maintain equivalent clean air supply for design occupancy whenever anyone is present in the space served by an HVAC system.
These facility protocols exceed pre-pandemic protocols and will be in place until new regulations and industry counsel are provided. The professional Facilities Management team at WMU takes their facility stewardship responsibilities very seriously and will follow best practices to ensure the safety of building occupants.