So many, in fact, that he and his colleagues authored a research article to alert people of the danger after a big uptick in cases following the start of the pandemic.Īnd to complicate things further, some UVC lamps sold online also emit ozone, an invisible gas that can also kill microbes. And there's been a lot more of them than usual. When the light is on, you should be out.Īmescua has been hearing about a lot of patients diagnosed with photokeratitis after staying in the room while their UVC lamp was on before coming in with symptoms.
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While some manufacturers are quite clear in their recommendation that the room, big or small, must be free of living creatures (including animals) when the lamp is turned on, others use generic language such as "no people or pets around," which might imply it's OK to distance yourself a bit and hang around in the same room - but it's not. Though photokeratitis can be caused by looking directly into a lamp as it radiates ultraviolet light (similar to bare eyes staring at the solar eclipse back in 2017), it can also happen if you're in the same room as a UVC device that produces light, which is why using them can get tricky.
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It is like a sunburn causing inflammatory damage to several layers of the eye, not just the skin around it, with symptoms such as severe eye pain or redness, blurry vision, eye twitching, light sensitivity or even temporary loss of vision. Guillermo Amescua, an ophthalmology specialist with the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami, warns of a condition called photokeratitis. The Food and Drug Administration says we still don't have enough data about the dose, wavelength or duration of UVC light rays needed to kill the coronavirus in the air or on surfaces, which means there's no certainty that any ultraviolet lamp can get rid of it. coli, for example - you won't see the coronavirus in the mix. Although they do typically list some specific bugs susceptible to the light - think influenza or E. But they are careful when it comes to stating which germs. Manufacturers use pleasant words such as "sterilizing" and "germicidal" to reference the lamp's ability to kill germs. Alternatively, there are even cheaper, more mobile ultraviolet gadgets such as handheld wands, or light boxes with lids, that are promoted as safe, easy-cleaning tools for small objects such as phones, computer keyboards and eyeglasses.Īlthough it's been proven that ultraviolet-C light can kill the coronavirus in controlled research environments using specific doses, there's no guarantee that a lamp will.
They're often labeled as desk lamps or table lights and priced in the $50 to $100 range.
Learn more about our team and coverage.Īnd the technology is making its way into consumer culture as well, with free-standing UVC lamps meant for your home or office. And we keep in mind that we're all neighbors in this global village. We tell stories of life in our changing world, focusing on low- and middle-income countries.
Goats and Soda is NPR's global health and development blog. And unlike the longer wavelengths of the sun's UV light, UVC rays don't naturally hit the Earth's surface, so they're particularly lethal for microbes that haven't had a chance to adapt to them. Let's start with the good news: Some recent studies confirm that SARS-CoV-2 is one of the viruses, along with other types of coronaviruses, that can be killed by ultraviolet light rays.Īctually, we've known that UV light kills a lot of different germs since the late 1800s when scientists discovered that shorter wavelengths of ultraviolet light rays emitted by the sun - what we now call ultraviolet-C rays or UVC light - could kill bacteria.
could exposure to the light be risky for me in any way? I'm using a lamp that emits UV light in my house to try and kill pathogens - the coronavirus in particular. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." A handheld ultraviolet-C wand is waved over the surface of a computer keyboard.Įach week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis.
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