Episode description

On this week's livestream I'm going to cover the topic of microbial contamination in carpet.  In Australia, with over 17% of insurance claims being water-related, the probability of your carpet becoming water-damaged and mould-affected at some stage is high.  Now, consider the context that asthma costs the community billions of dollars every year and that approx. 35% of asthma cases are caused by mould and dampness (tune in for these references!). You should be aware that there are 3 main types of carpets: nylon, wool and polypropylene. Which one is better or worse for your respiratory health?  What does dust do to the ability of your carpet to induce asthma?  What does the amount of humidity do?  These are some of the key questions we're going to answer in today's livestream. Once you know which carpet, which humidity and what other factors impact on your carpet cleanliness, I'm then going to discuss which cleaning methods are best for removing these microbial contaminants.

As part of the weekly 'Breaking News' segment, there a fascinating new paper that's come out that explains how mould damages the lung.  This paper provides fundamental evidence in support of the reasons that even low levels of mould can cause harm top people. We're also going to review 2 papers that have come out about the COVID-19 pandemic.  The first is a review of what we know of the medical journey for some of the first virus infected patients in China.  This information showed that severe pulmonary disease is the #1 reason for admission to the intensive care unit (ICU).  Viral infections (and before COVID-19) became the central worry on all our minds, the risk from severe influenza pneumonia resulting in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) may in fact be made worse by Aspergillus infections. The relationship of co-infections with other pathogens like bacteria and fungi cannot be underestimated with COVID-19.

YouTube Link which has all the reference links:

https://youtu.be/_Rs82rPeARo