In fall 2022, I stumbled upon this page on the Seattle Space Needle’s website and realized that they were using ALL the existing tools to make the indoor parts of the structure as COVID-free as possible. Like, they were actually implementing the COVID science nerd’s dream. I’m really pretty anti-tourist-trap stuff, but I decided that I someday HAD to see this in person. Yesterday was the day. /1
They have sadly (but probably inevitably) now done away with mandatory masking, but one of the non-tech-related measures they’ve actually kept is the timed entry thing. You don’t just buy a ticket and come whenever, you buy a ticket for a particular fifteen-minute time slot so that it’s less crowded. It's a small thing, but it also improves the experience for non-COVID-related reasons, so it's definitely worth keeping! /3
Before you even enter the structure, you see these posters everywhere describing the programme. To me, this was honestly the BEST part? They could have quietly taken measures and not bothered telling anyone about them (like my employer, ahem), but instead they’ve got a full-fledged public education campaign going. It warmed my COVID-science-nerd heart. /4
One thing that surprised me in a bad way was how BAD the ventilation was in all the indoor spaces! In fact, if I had to guess, I’d bet that the Elevating Clean programme started when they tried to upgrade the ventilation and realized that they either weren’t going to be able to or that it wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough (so they did EVERYTHING else). /5
This article tells the story of how their “Elevating Clean” programme came about. Apparently they tried EVERYTHING early on and then gradually figured out (as it became clear that transmission occurs through the air and not from surfaces) which things would actually help. /2