The association between low humidity and increased disease from SARS-CoV-2 is real, important, and cannot be discounted by the presence of other variables.
It’s important for engineers to realize that the health of building occupants, both now and after COVID-19, is strongly affected by indoor air management.
Antibiotics, antiseptics, high-frequency light waves, and oxygen radicals have saved many lives. We must use them selectively and for limited time periods, being fully aware of the ability of microbes to fight back with resistance.
We now have the mechanical equipment to create protective buildings, the tools to measure and track the connections between indoor climates, and the computing capabilities to correlate the data to tell us if we are doing things right.