Researcher Dr Richard Hobday, author of the Healing Sun and The Light Revolution, said that during the First World War, military surgeons routinely used sunlight to heal infected wounds.
“Public health advice in the 1918 pandemic was sleep with your bedroom windows open and get out in the fresh air and sunshine.
“Hospital patients who were nursed outdoors in tents and put in the sun seem to have recovered far better than those indoors.”
Earlier this week, Giving evidence at the science and technology select committee, Professor Alan Penn, the chief scientific adviser at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said being outdoors will help prevent people from contracting the virus.
“The science suggests that being outside in sunlight, with good ventilation, are both highly protective against transmission of the virus.”
Ventilation
Open-air therapy was once a popular treatment for deadly respiratory conditions such as tuberculosis, and patients were regularly put outside to breathe the fresh air until antibiotics became standard in the 1950s.
As early as the 1960s, the Ministry of Defence had shown that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant, able to kill the flu virus and other harmful germs.
Hospital wards were once ‘cross-ventilated’ with large windows to allow fresh air to move freely, but modern hospitals mostly have closed systems and depend on air conditioning for their air supply.
In March, scientists from the National Centre for Infectious Diseases in Singapore found that coronavirus could spread around buildings via air conditioning systems or even on a draught, after discovering traces of the virus in a hospital air duct.
Prof Neal said that fresh air quickly dispersed any droplets of coronavirus that are in the atmosphere.
