ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Think about how many lights are in your home or at a grocery store, or in your office. There are currently 5.6 billion lightbulbs in U.S. residential homes alone. And they may now be an untapped resource for a brighter and cleaner future. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, experts of all fields have been scrambling to find new and innovative solutions to keep us all healthy and safe. Now, Ivanhoe has details on the first place in the country to put COVID-killing tech in their lights.
From nanoparticles to robots, new, innovative tech has been saving lives through this pandemic. Now, the Med Spa, Glo Aesthetics is the first location in the country to install COVID-killing UVA lights in their ceilings.
“It felt really exciting to be the first in the country to have these,” said Emily Saker, Owner & CEO of Glo Aesthetics & Skincare.
The lights have two modes that emit different wavelengths from the invisible ultraviolet spectrum. Mode one is UVA, continuously and safely offering virus protection throughout the day.
“Eight hours under these lights is the equivalent of one minute in the sunlight,” explained Tom Pearce, CEO and Co-Founder, COLighting Solutions.
Mode two is UVC, a powerful wave with the ability to kill viruses in the air and on surfaces including the flu, e-coli, mold, and COVID-19.
“You just basically go into the room, it has a QR code that you match up to it and within five minutes the room is clean,” shared Saker.
But if it can kill COVID, can it kill you too? These UVC lights have emergency shut-offs to protect users from exposure.
“This is just like an extra step that’s insuring us like no matter what there will be no germs left behind,” stated Lea Montes, a Glo Aesthetics facial client.
“Everybody feels safer. My employees feel safer, my clients feel safer. Because we don’t know what’s coming and I would rather be safe than to be sorry,” smiled Saker.
The opportunities for these lights are endless. Everywhere with lights has potential for this new tech. K through 12 schooling, universities, streetlights, retail stores, offices, spas, hospitals, even inside cars. Especially interesting for those trying to use car sharing services during the pandemic. These can even be used in places like movie theaters as UVA is a non-visible form of light and UVC can be used in between showings.
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis and Sabrina Broadbent, Producers; and Roque Correa, Videographer and Editor.
COVID-KILLING TECH: A BRIGHTER TOMORROW
REPORT #2864
BACKGROUND: Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people infected with the virus experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, older adults, and those with underlying medical conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer, are more likely to develop a more serious illness. The best way to prevent, slow down transmission, and protect yourself and others from infection is by washing your hands or using an alcohol-based rub frequently and not touching your face. The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes, so it’s important that you also practice respiratory etiquette.
(Source: https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1)
POST-COVID CONDITIONS: The CDC uses the term post-COVID conditions to describe health issues that continue for more than four weeks after first being infected with the virus. Experts do not know why or how often some people experience these conditions. Long COVID is a range of symptoms that can last weeks or months after first being infected or can appear weeks after infection. It can happen even if the illness was mild, or they had no symptoms. People with long COVID report experiencing different combinations of symptoms. Some of those symptoms are tiredness or fatigue, difficulty thinking or concentrating, headache, loss of smell or taste, dizziness on standing, heart palpitations, chest pain, shortness of breath, cough, joint or muscle pain, depression or anxiety, fever, and symptoms that get worse after physical or mental activities.
(Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects.html)
THE FUTURE OF COVID TREATMENTS: Scientists have identified nine potential new COVID-19 treatments, including three that are already approved by the FDA for treating other diseases. Thousands of existing drugs and drug-like molecules were screened for their ability to inhibit the replication of the virus. For this screening project, Sara Cherry, PhD, Co-Senior Author and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Scientific Director of the High-Throughput Screening (HTS) Core at Penn Medicine, and colleagues assembled a library of 3,059 compounds, including about 1,000 FDA-approved drugs and more than 2,000 drug-like molecules that have shown activity against defined biological targets. They tested all of these for their ability to significantly inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in infected cells, without causing much toxicity. Findings suggested that in kidney and liver cells, the virus uses a mechanism that can be disrupted, for example, by hydroxychloroquine; yet the virus appears to use a different mechanism in respiratory cells, which explains hydroxychloroquine’s lack of success in those cells. The study highlights cyclosporine as particularly promising, as it appears to work against SARS-CoV-2 in respiratory and non-respiratory cells.
* For More Information, Contact:
Stephen Saker
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