{"id":206,"date":"2020-05-15T22:31:48","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T22:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/?p=206"},"modified":"2022-05-24T12:34:51","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T12:34:51","slug":"preparing-for-sip-reopening-legionnaires-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/preparing-for-sip-reopening-legionnaires-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for SIP Reopening: Legionnaires&#8217; Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Steps to Avoid the Risk of Legionnaires&#8217; Disease while Reopening<\/strong><br><br>As our community begins to take steps to reopen,&nbsp;commercial buildings,&nbsp;vacated or underutilized for more than three weeks are at risk for a Legionnaires&#8217; outbreak. &nbsp;<br><br>Government and Public Health officers say that unless the water pipes are properly flushed and sanitized the lack of chlorinated water flowing through pipes mixed with&nbsp;unregulated temperature changes create an environment vulnerable to the bacteria that causes Legionnaires&#8217; disease.<br><br><strong>Example of Those at Risk:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Schools<\/li><li>Gyms<\/li><li>Commercial Businesses and Government Offices<\/li><li>Small Businesses<\/li><li>Factories&nbsp;<\/li><li>Hotels<\/li><li>Restaurants<\/li><li>Outpatient Surgical Centers<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Legionnaires&#8217; Disease is a waterborne illness that leads to pneumonia. &nbsp;It infects people when Legionella bacteria is released into the air as an aerosol from water sources, such as hot tubs, showerheads, fountains, sprinkler systems and industrial water cooling systems. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most cases&nbsp;can be successfully cured with antibiotics and the illness cannot be spread from human to human contact but many cases also require hospitalization. &nbsp; The disease attacks your lungs and&nbsp;has similar symptoms as coronavirus patients, including cough,&nbsp;chills and fever, making misdiagnosis possible so preventing the bacteria build up and exposure&nbsp;is important for both the health of occupants as well as minimizing additional strain to our Medical System. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Spread of Legionnaires&#8217; Disease is preventable with proper planning<\/strong>. &nbsp;Globally, Water and Sanitation Associations are developing reopening standards. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Recommendations include:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Anyone servicing water pipes before reopening should take the same precautions as one might to prevent the spread of COVID-19: wear gloves and a mask.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Any device dormant during the shutdown and connected to a water system should be flushed.<\/li><li>Building pipes that go more than one week with low or no&nbsp;occupancy should be thoroughly flushed for at least 30 minutes.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Test twice, 3-5 days after flushing and again two months later.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>ACC&#8217;s Industrial Hygiene Team is available to discuss&nbsp;<br>Reopening Planning for your Building.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong><a href=\"mailto:proposal@accenv.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CONTACT US<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steps to Avoid the Risk of Legionnaires&#8217; Disease while Reopening As our community begins to take steps to reopen,&nbsp;commercial buildings,&nbsp;vacated or underutilized for more than three weeks are at risk <a href=\"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/preparing-for-sip-reopening-legionnaires-disease\/\" class=\"more-link\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-environmental-consulting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.accenv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}