Lessons from the pandemic… and what we are doing to prevent the next one

In early 2020 the world came to a standstill with the arrival of COVID-19. It has been more than a century since we have seen a pandemic of this size and with such a strong impact on our lives, despite the fact that several experts had anticipated it as a possible scenario, and in everything similar, and that there have been several threats – in 2005, with the outbreak of Influenza A (H5N1) and, in 2017, with Ebola and MERS-CoV, causing SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), the predecessor of SARS-CoV2.

According to the experts, these diseases did not have an impact as devastating as COVID-19, by sheer luck. Either because the viruses were not spread through the air, or because they were so disabling that infected people were usually bedridden and the spread was therefore less widespread. SARS-CoV2, on the other hand, an airborne virus with a high percentage of asymptomatic patients, was the ideal vehicle for a pandemic that caused (and continues to cause) millions of lost lives and astronomical economic impacts, further widening the gap between rich and poor and increasing social inequalities.

Have we learned anything from this pandemic?

Despite all the warnings and their predictability, it was shown that we were not prepared to deal with the pandemic. And although there has been a major global mobilization to create and produce vaccines in record time, the truth is that their application has been anything but generalized. Look at vaccination rates – while some have vaccines reaching expiration date, others have difficulty accessing them. More than a local effort, this is a global problem that we must address as humanity, not as a country, race, or religion.

Bill Gates, philanthropist, and founder of Microsoft, who had already warned in 2015 about the risk of an imminent pandemic, released a new book earlier this month in which he argues, once again, that it is essential to invest in prevention. Just as we have a fire defense system, invest in firefighting equipment, and have dedicated teams, Gates proposes to create a multinational force to fight pandemics, with the tools and means for a quick containment, advocating that the cost of such investment would be lower than this pandemic. In fact, many experts say that the financial effort required for such prevention would be about ten times less than the cost of containing the current COVID-19 pandemic.

What are we doing to prepare for the next one?

But what kind of tools are we talking about? Of course, personal protective equipment, logistical and life support tools are key components. But not only. Because it is important to keep transmissibility levels low in crowded places, such as schools, airports, and offices. That’s where deep ultraviolet technology (far UV or UV-C) comes in.

As early as 2017, Dr. David Brenner, a physicist specializing in radiology, talked about how we were losing the war against multidrug-resistant bacteria and proposed the installation of ultraviolet lights to reduce these types of infections. In his words “widespread installation of deep UV-C light could prevent the next pandemic or even seasonal flu.”

This is also the opinion shared by Prachi Patel in “IEEE Spectrum” – the respected magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – who advocates the use of UV-C lights not only for combat, but also as a tool to prevent pandemics and respiratory infections.

The emergence of COVID-19 has boosted the industrial development of UV-C disinfection products and a leap forward in the maturity of UV-C LEDs, because, just as with conventional lighting, LED can be far more effective and economical.

ARQUILED is proud to be actively participating in the innovation and development in this area with the creation of the HIGYA LED UV-C disinfection devices. And the results are very encouraging when it comes to effectiveness – in certified laboratories, the UV-C LED disinfection emitted by HIGYA devices achieved more than 99.99% inactivation of the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Similar studies by other manufacturers using the same technology have shown the same effectiveness on other viruses and bacteria.

Additionally, BRIGHT SCIENCE, an ARQUILED company specialized in solutions for Smart Cities, developed the SDMS, a Social Distancing Monitoring System for outdoor environments, which allows to estimate the population density in crowded spaces, in an anonymous and non-intrusive way, avoiding overcrowding and optimizing traffic management. This solution should hit the market in early June.

So here is the challenge. Will we wait for the next pandemic, or will we invest in prevention? We have already seen that a pandemic is not only substantially more expensive, but also carries an unbearable burden in terms of loss of human lives. It depends, therefore, exclusively on us to prepare for the next one to avoid it or to significantly mitigate its most harmful consequences.

Miguel Allen Lima
ARQUILED CEO