LAS VEGAS, Nevada: Las Vegas schools, the fifth largest school system in the United States, use ultraviolet light to kill germs in classrooms to prevent the spread of Covid.
“There are no chemicals in it. It’s just light,” said Grant Morgan, CEO and co-founder of Utah-based biosafety startup R-Zero, the Associated Press reported.
A tower emitting blue light is certified to disinfect a 1,000 square meter interior in seven minutes. Morgan said the lights will destroy more than 99.99 percent of surface and airborne pathogens, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.
The Clark County School District purchased an Arc unit for each of its 372 schools with $ 7.4 million in federal funding for coronavirus relief. Each disinfection unit costs $ 20,000.
Classes began on August 9 for the district’s 310,000 students.
R-Zero Systems Inc. of South Salt Lake, Utah, supplies ultraviolet units to hotels, restaurants, corporate offices and more than 100 school districts across the country, Morgan said.
Jeff Wagner, director of Clark County’s school facilities, said the units will be used every night to disinfect a few classrooms at each school as part of a “layered mitigation strategy,” Wagner said. “There is no silver bullet that can make a building 100% safe.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration designates ultraviolet light as a well-known disinfectant for air, water, and non-porous surfaces and has been used for decades to reduce the spread of bacteria such as tuberculosis.
