Ever since COVID-19 first appeared in the media, experts from all around the world tried to find methods of helping people avoid contracting the virus and protect themselves to the best of their ability. Since the size of the virus is known to be around 0.12 microns, it’s not that difficult to see that HEPA filters can be more or less efficient in filtering out the new coronavirus to a great extent. But is that true of all HEPA filters?
We already know that EPA filters are not effective against COVID-19 because they only filter particles larger than 0.3 microns. However, HEPA H13 filters are also somewhat on the fence when it comes to their ability to filter the virus effectively.
Since sizes between 0.1 and 0.2 microns are among the hardest to filter – larger particles being intercepted by the filter and smaller one being filtered quite effectively through the diffusion effect – filters that remove less than 99.99% of the smallest particles can fall a bit short from the desired result.
As such, the filters you need to look for are typically HEPA
H14 and above, which have a much better success rate than HEPA H13 filters,
being able to remove up to 99.999% of smaller particles. The idea here is that,
even though there are better alternatives, in theory, such as various ULPA
filters, filtration works in a way that gives the advantage to the best HEPA
filters even though some only filter particles larger than 0.3 microns for the
most part. Because viruses like COVID-19 typically hitch a ride on larger
particles, an HEPA filter will be more than enough to keep them away. For filters and Dyson vacuum cleaner parts look to a local vacuum repair shop.
