How buildings can bring people together safely

Emma Segelov, MK Electric’s EMEA Marketing Operations Manager, examines why post-pandemic concerns about indoor building health and safety remain high, why these shouldn’t be ignored, and what building owners and managers can do to make electrical touchpoints safer.

Companies have a duty to protect employees and stakeholders whom they conduct business with, from anything that may cause harm arising in the workplace. Although more than 30m[1] people in the UK have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 at the time of writing, the pandemic is not over yet. Therefore, organisations still need to employ effective mitigation practices as they bring back workers, students, shoppers and restaurant goers into their premises. So how can building owners and managers make these spaces safer, not only in the short term, but even when the pandemic ends? Minimising the spread of contaminants via electrical touchpoints is a good place to start as part of wider infrastructural improvements.

One of the biggest changes that MK Electric has seen is how people’s awareness levels have increased about how being indoors impacts on infection spread. This has resulted in people considering aspects like touchpoints and adherence to safety guidelines which weren’t high priority before.

In a recent study commissioned by Honeywell and carried out by Wakefield Research[2] of workers’ perceptions on the health and safety of their workplace, a staggering majority of the UK respondents (71%) do not feel completely safe working in their employer’s buildings. Half of the participants interviewed are equally concerned with transmission of COVID-19 through touching a surface that has the virus (51%) and through the air (49%).

Many buildings have changed procedures to keep occupants safer, but more permanent modifications are not being made to the buildings themselves – and their occupants have noticed. 62% of respondents in the UK believe that their building management is likely to make short-term changes in response to COVID-19, rather than long-term investments in building systems to keep them safer.

With nearly one in five (22%) surveyed UK remote employees saying that they would look for a new job rather than return to a site that did not implement the necessary safety measures, it is clear that companies who don’t take the provision of safer and healthier environments seriously enough in the future, even when the current pandemic ends, could risk losing valuable staff.

As part of making long-term improvements to create a healthier environment overall, consideration should be given to minimising the spread of contaminants via touchpoints, such as electrical switches and sockets.

This is part of the reason why there is an increased demand for electrical products with inherent anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties, such as MK’s Logic Plus and MK Base ranges. Although it’s not always easy to justify infrastructural upgrades in the current economic environment, the choice of wiring devices available means that healthier building environments can be created, whatever the project and budget.

To provide adequate protection for users against contracting an infection from frequently touched surfaces like electrical sockets and switches, products that have been tested to the latest internationally-recognised standard – ISO 22196:2011 – should be recommended. Claims made on products that have not been tested to an industry recognised standard such as ISO 22196:2011 may not be as scientifically robust. Specifiers and installers should look for efficacy across a range of pathogens, some of which could be more relevant to the end-client’s sector. For example, MRSA can cause a serious infection and often poses a higher risk to patients in hospitals and other healthcare environments.

Viruses too, can cause a wide variety of illnesses. One of the smallest known non-enveloped viruses, Phi-X174, is used as an internationally recognised standard in anti-viral testing to analyse the resistance of critical PPE and air filtration systems to blood-borne viruses. Non-enveloped viruses are much harder to kill because they carry the proteins used to infect cells in an inner layer which is less susceptible to disinfectants.

This is in contrast to their enveloped counterparts which have an outer membrane. The membrane contains the proteins used by the virus to enter its victim’s cells and is sensitive to chemical and physical treatments. Because non-enveloped viruses are harder to disinfect, it is one of the reasons why protection against Phi-X174 is used as a standard for evaluating antiviral performance.

As we make our way back into indoor spaces, the use of both short and long-term measures to combat the spread of pathogens will be key in instilling confidence amongst employees and other building occupants. Investing in infrastructural upgrades contributes to a healthier environment, helping to retain and attract both staff and customers coming through those doors.

MK Electric, hwll.co/MKAntimicrobial

[1] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations [2] Commissioned by Honeywell, the survey was conducted by Wakefield

Research (wakefieldresearch.com) among 2,000 workers in buildings of 500+ workers in the following markets: US (500), UK (500), Germany (500) and the Middle East (500), between 19 November and 1 December 2020, using an email invitation and an online survey

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