The effect of post-COVID-19 ventilation measures on indoor air quality in primary schools

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has made people acutely aware of the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ) and building ventilation systems, particularly in densely occupied places like offices and schools. As a result, governments and other public entities are increasingly investing in the installation, maintenance, and upgrades of ventilation systems in public buildings. However, little is known about the effect of building ventilation systems on actual IAQ and its impact on occupant behavior. This paper exploits exogenous closing and opening events of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with policy measures focusing on maximizing ventilation rates inside classrooms, to assess the effectiveness of building ventilation systems in primary schools. We use a unique sensor network implemented before the COVID-19 pandemic, consisting of measurement devices installed in 252 classrooms across 27 Dutch primary schools, continuously monitoring IAQ indicators such as CO2 levels and fine particle concentrations. Using high-frequency data from the 2018 to 2022 school years, we compare the IAQ differences between natural and mechanical ventilation through a fixed-effect identification strategy. Our results show that mechanically ventilated classrooms perform better with respect to CO2 and fine particle levels. However, the post-COVID-19 ventilation measures implemented after school reopening had stronger effects on naturally ventilated classrooms, suggesting behavioral changes at the classroom level. We also investigate the longer-term effects of these new ventilation measures and show some evidence of decay in effectiveness, as well as a strong seasonal effect, particularly in naturally ventilated classrooms, which seems the result of a trade-off between ventilation and thermal comfort.