An Ontario board of health is asking the province to amend the building code to mandate higher standards for ventilation, in light of the spread of COVID-19.

The chair of the board of health in Peterborough, Ont., wrote this month to Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark to urge the province to apply one of the lessons learned from the pandemic.

“We’ve learned a great deal about COVID-19 since the pandemic began, most notably, is that COVID-19 is an airborne virus, and does not spread as easily as we once thought by touching contaminated surfaces,” Kathryn Wilson wrote.

“Improvements to indoor air quality of the spaces we occupy are necessary and life-saving to truly control how the SARS-CoV2 virus and other respiratory/airborne pathogens spread.”

One change Wilson’s letter suggests is to requirements for housing and small buildings. Current rules mandate mechanical ventilation at a rate of either one or half an air change per hour, depending on whether the space is mechanically cooled in the summer.

The board of health calls for at least six air exchanges per hour and the use of HEPA filters or filters with a MERV 13 rating in HVAC systems. Those high-grade filters are what Ontario has used in schools with mechanical ventilation systems during the pandemic.

Those standards would align with recommendations from the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, Wilson wrote.

“We must start including the quality of the air we breathe when we think of and refer to the safety of indoor settings,” she wrote.

“The (Ontario Building Code), like other building and construction codes in Canada, emphasizes air tightness and energy efficiency to cope with winter cold and summer heat, and while these too are important objectives, this may unintentionally result in poorly or under-ventilated public and private settings, creating additional threats to public health and safety.”