ROME (Reuters – A Tuesday study in Italy suggests efficient ventilation systems could reduce transmission of COVID-19 to schools by over 80%.

A Hume foundation think tank conducted an experiment to compare coronavirus contagion in 10441 schools located in central Marche, Italy.

In the 316 classrooms equipped with mechanical ventilation systems, COVID cases were significantly lower. The strength of these systems also influenced the decrease in incidence.

Applications that guarantee a replacement of all the air in classrooms 2.4 times per hour reduced infections by 40%. The study revealed that they were reduced by 66.8% when there was four replacements of air per hour, and by 82.5% when there are six replacements.

It is common for schools in Italy to lack ventilation systems. It is recommended that teachers keep their windows open during the warmest weather possible.

The Hume foundation, Marche region government and Marche said that if the best systems were in place “we would be able to pass 250 cases per 100,000 students (the alert threshold set by education ministry),” to their press release.

It was conducted between September 2021, and January of this year.

Italy witnessed a dramatic acceleration of COVID cases during December and January. This followed a slowdown from mid-January up to just a few weeks ago.

They are currently on the rise again due to an Omicron variant. But, there have been fewer deaths and new hospitals.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in February 2020, there have been 157 904 COVID-19 related deaths in this country. It is second in Europe behind Britain and eighth globally. To date, it has recorded 13.89 millions cases.

On Monday, 32,573 additional cases were reported by the ministry of health, up from 60,415 the previous day. The number of deaths increased to 119, up from 93.