The air in schools, a hot potato
I’ve been passing over a lot of the education stories, but this one about a school in Montreal with terrible air quality struck me, because I can remember getting sleepy every day in class, in the afternoons, for no good reason, and now I suspect it was not me, but the CO2.
Also, is there a Québécois thing about the dangerous effects of “courants d’air”? I hadn’t really thought of it as cultural, but when a couple of folks were discussing it from that angle on Twitter recently it came back to me how often I was not allowed to open windows at work (this back in the day when everyone smoked inside, too), and having one coworker loudly accuse me of having made her gravely ill by opening the window a little. I remember my folks talking anxiously about “drafts” in a similar way, but I don’t know anyone anglo in my generation who would prefer a stuffy room to having a window cracked open a little.
MattG 10:08 on 2021-04-20 Permalink
Hey Kate, ever hear of Fan Death?
Kate 10:09 on 2021-04-20 Permalink
Yes, I have a Korean acquaintance who clued me in about it. Although she didn’t believe in it herself, she said her mother did.
Nick D 11:38 on 2021-04-20 Permalink
I think you are right, but I’d noticed this in France and in French-French (the thing about “les courants d’air”, I mean). So maybe it’s a thing that’s in the language-using culture as a whole. (I seem to remember a line in the film Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain where the woman who runs the tabac in the café refers to the courants d’air). The other one I’d noticed in France is an obsession with “calcaire” in the water (i.e. hard water) and how terrible it is in all kinds of ways. There used to be ads on TV in France about this. I’ve not noticed this in Quebec culture though.
Raymond Lutz 13:05 on 2021-04-20 Permalink
Ben j’te dira que t’ce bord citte d’la solitude y a rien de spécial que j’me rappel l’adsus… La seule chose (incongrue?) que ma mère disait: “Mettez votre foulard ou sinon vous aller attraper froid” (catch a cold). Rien de spécial sur les courants d’air intérieur.
Kate 13:51 on 2021-04-20 Permalink
I’ll open this window and give you rheumatic fever, Raymond Lutz!
Raymond Lutz 15:09 on 2021-04-20 Permalink
J’ai mon foulard! For those interested à la fine pointe of current knowledge about mechanical ventilation in covid time, read Effects of building ventilation on SARS-CoV-2 transmission a keynote at the ASHRAE 2020 Virtual Conference.
TL;DR (en français, car repiqué d’un commentaire que j’ai fait à l’instant sur Radiocanne): on y apprend que ce n’est pas tant la concentration de C02 qui importe, mais la fraction réinhalée (quelle fraction de l’air que vous respirez contient de l’air exhalé par votre voisin). En temps de pandémie l’auteur recommande 1% max… Ce qui correspond à un apport continuel d’air frais de 10 litres/seconde par occupant adulte (la moitié pour les enfants?) je doute que ces seuils soient atteints, ni l’hiver ni l’été, because $$$
Daniel D 16:10 on 2021-04-20 Permalink
> … I can remember getting sleepy every day in class, in the afternoons, for no good reason, and now I suspect it was not me, but the CO2
When I took government run French lessons, they language school was based in an old school building on the Plateau which looked pretty much untouched since the days it really was a school.
I recall the air circulation was pretty much non-existant, and within 30 minutes the room was stuffy and I felt sleepy and sluggish. It sounds like it fits Kate’s experience.
In fact I did another course at UQAM, and those small lecture rooms have the same problem.
dhomas 07:41 on 2021-04-21 Permalink
Italians have something similar called “colpo d’aria”. This article sums it up pretty well (though I don’t know who would have been traveling to Italy last October):
https://www.thelocal.it/20201027/italian-expression-of-the-day-colpo-daria/
I have to admit, I wear an undershirt (canottiera) to this day thanks to my Italian upbringing.