As the summer months approach, the effectiveness of ultraviolet provided by the sun and man-made tech is being considered a disinfectant tool to combat the global coronavirus pandemic.
UV light has been used to disinfect hospitals and operating rooms for decades, and the equipment was valued at $1.1 billion in 2018 with a projected value of $3.4 by 2026, according to Allied Market Research, CNBC reported.
The UV light technology could expand its use in hotels, if not restaurants, and public spaces, per the report.
President Donald Trump was widely derided in the media for talking about experimental medical use of UV light "inside the body" to save lives, but research was already underway because UV light has shown an ability to kill the coronavirus microbes quickly in a laboratory study by the Department of Homeland Security.
"Thought powerful UV light cannot be used on the human body, it can help prevent the spread of the virus," CNBC reported. "Technological breakthroughs could see UV light become a key piece in returning to normal in a world with a looming COVID-19 threat."
Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research Director David Brenner told CNBC that UV-C benefits have been "known for more than 100 years now to be really, really good at killing microbes, bacteria and viruses both."
UV-C is the third UV wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum, which included X-rays, microwaves, and radio waves, among others.
UV-A and UV-B are the rays from the sun that reach the earth's surface and cause skin sunburns, while UV-C is filtered out through the atmosphere and is in the "germicidal disinfectant range," per the report.
The DHS study suggesting sunlight kills the coronavirus in mere seconds references UV-A and UV-B which are even less potent than UV-C, according to Brenner.
"The issue with UV-C is it's a health hazard, so you can really only use it when people are not around," Brenner said.
Drones and scanner technology, though, could be used to disinfect hotel rooms and restaurants at night when they are unoccupied, cleaning them from viruses for the next day.
Ostensibly UV light penetrates a microbe and "cracks it like an egg," a doctor told CNBC.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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