Michael Keel

Why are we asking for funding?

Dear colleagues, some of may have noticed my interest in the simple subject of humidity, specifically on how scientists, leading institutions of learning (like Oxford University, Harvard, Yale,) Researchers and several others have produced peer reviewed papers that have shown minimum humidity or dry air has a significant influence on SARS-CoV-2 ability to transmit, infect and even survive.

I have taken an interest in this subject for the last three years, eventually was able to produce a remarkable association in a graph format between London Covid surges (or waves) using publicly available London Covid hospital admission and minimum humidity data from Heathrow weather stations covering the whole pandemic period.

I have also discovered associations in India, New York and Germany all easily independently verifiable. Here is my personal work and it includes several links to peer reviewed studies of the significance of humidity and how it can influence health outcomes.

https://medium.com/for-the-first-time-the-relationship-between/for-the-first-time-the-relationship-between-relative-humidity-and-covid-19-cases-has-been-proposed-ef1b09b5aad

Following all this work it is clear their is ample humidifiers are useful for mitigating against excess negative health outcomes specifically with respect to Covid and Influenza backed by peer reviewed study.

The private sector as usual is well ahead of the public sector and has already produced several types of humidifiers in the market place ( Google for examples). The majority are however expensive some exceeding £1000 per unit well above what most people are prepared to pay for a humidifier?

This is the reason I used initiative and years of research and knowledge to develop a novel humidifier that will not only be affordable for most people at approximately USD 5.00 per unit but as effective as any you will find in the current market place.

Other than being possibly one of the cheapest humidifiers to manufacture here are the other advantages this humidfier offers over the ones currently available in the market place:

• It does not require electricity to operate.
• it has a capacity of at least 3 litres of water.
• It is designed to operate in the space under central heating radiators where it is sited on the floor.

The advantages of this placement:

(I)              Dry air has a higher density than any air with water vapour.  Humidifiers only act above the level from which they operate because dry air sinks and water vapour rises.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor )

(II)            It is a discrete area and the humidifier can be concealed with facia panels.

(III)           It can tap heat from the heater above by conducting heat using metal filaments fig (8)  placed at the back of the radiator to conduct heat vertically downward to the water  reservoir below.  There is also heat transfer via convection from the dry air heated at back of  the radiator. (Up to 50% of the heat from a radiator is released at the back)

(IV)    It is sited on the floor which means it can ‘suck’ in dry air that sinks to the floor, humidifies it generating a current of dry air sinking and humidified air rising.  Resulting in humidifying the indoor space more efficiently than other common humidifiers.