Workday Air Quality Measurements

May 17th, 2022
airquality, covid-19
I continue to be very excited about my new M2000 meter, and I brought it with me today to measure air quality during my commute and workday. Here's what I found:


full-size image

Time Activity CO2 (ppm) pm2.5 ug/m3
8:00 Left house 426 2.9
8:15 Davis station 468 69.9
8:24 Red line, new car 802 29.3
8:36 Kendall station, outside 477 11
8:40 Hallways, elevators, breakfast in cafe 563 2.8
9:18 Office, door open 475 1
10:00 Closed door 514 1
10:31 Open door 553 1
11:02 Team meeting, 14 people, ~15x30 1052 1
12:04 Hallways, elevator 686 1.6
12:10 Lunch in cafe 943 2.6
12:50 Hallways, elevator 763 2.1
12:57 Office, door open 537 1
2:02 Closed door 539 1
2:31 Two people 599 1
2:54 One person, open door 587 1
3:01 Closed door, two people 598 1
3:31 Open door, zero people 538 1
4:04 Closed door, two people 591 1
4:38 Kendall station 487 36.6
4:44 Red line, old car 953 21.6
4:56 Davis station 537 134.5
4:58 Outside 445 2.25

I spent most of my workday in my office, with the door open. I closed the door for meetings, either virtual or in person. The "zero people" at 3:31 is me going on a walking 1:1: with a report and leaving my meter behind at my desk.

Currently I wear a mask on the subway (and stations) and at work when I'm not in my office or a conference room with a small number of people. Based on these readings, it would be safe from a covid perspective to remove my mask in the subway station, but given the high level of particulate pollution I might as well leave it on.

(At this point I'm not wearing a mask because I think it would be directly harmful to myself or my family to get covid, but instead because the steps we would need to take to reduce the risk of infecting others once we knew we were infected would be very inconvenient.)

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