EA - Thoughts on far-UVC after working in the field for 8 months by Max Görlitz

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Thoughts on far-UVC after working in the field for 8 months, published by Max Görlitz on July 31, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Views expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer SecureBio.SummaryFar-UVC has great promise, but a lot of work still needs to be doneThere still are many important open research questions that need to be answered before the technology can become widely adoptedRight now, a key priority is to grow the research field and improve coordinationThe main reason far-UVC is so promising is that widespread installation could passively suppress future pandemics before we even learn that an outbreak has occurredHigher doses mean more rapid inactivation of airborne pathogens but also more risk for harm to skin, eyes, and through indoor air chemistry. Therefore, the important question in safety is, "How high can far-UVC doses go while maintaining a reasonable risk profile?"Existing evidence for skin safety within current exposure guidelines seems pretty robust, and I expect that skin safety won't be the bottleneck for far-UVC deployment at higher doses.Current evidence around eye safety is much more sparse than for skin safety. Eye safety seems like it could be the bottleneck to what doses of far-UVC can be reasonably used.Undoubtedly, far-UVC has a substantial impact on indoor air chemistry by producing ozone, which oxidizes volatile organic compounds in the air that can result in harmful products such as particulate matter.Little research has been done on methods to mitigate this issue.This might turn out to be a bottleneck to what doses of far-UVC can be reasonably used, but I am really uncertain here.There is no doubt that far-UVC can dramatically reduce the amount of airborne pathogens within a room (inactivation of ~98% of aerosolized bacteria within 5 minutes). Crucially, we don't know how well this translates into an actual reduction in the total number of infections.Very few people have thought about how the adoption of far-UVC could be driven and what a widespread deployment of the technology could look likeSo far, there is little to no regulation of far-UVC.In the US, (potential) regulation of far-UVC seems quite messy, as no authority has clear jurisdiction over it.IntroductionFar-UVC (200-235 nm) has received quite a bit of attention in EA-adjacent biosecurity circles as a technology to reduce indoor airborne disease spread and is often discussed in the context of indoor air quality (IAQ). Notably, Will MacAskill mentioned it often throughout various media appearances in 2022.I have been working on research around far-UVC for the past 8 months. More specifically, we wrote an extensive literature review on skin and eye safety (submitted & soon™ to be published as an academic paper). We also coordinated with many researchers in the field to lay out a plan for the studies that still need to be done to get a more comprehensive understanding of the technology's safety & efficacy.Although far-UVC has been discussed on the forum, the existing information is relatively shallow, and most in-depth knowledge is either buried in technical research papers or not publicly available since a lot of intricacies are mostly discussed informally within the research community.In this post, I will first offer high-level thoughts and then go over different categories of information around far-UVC (safety, efficacy, indoor air chemistry, adoption, and regulation) to provide my current perspectives & takes. Please note that I am much more familiar with safety aspects than with the other categories. Also, this is not a general overview of far-UVC, what it is, and how it works. For a relatively recent and comprehensive introduction, I recommend "Far UV-C radiation: An emerging tool for pandemic co...