One of the first businesses to fall during the COVID outbreak was the movie theater industry. When we had to stop gathering in groups, how could movie theaters stay around? When you go to the movies, you literally jam pack yourselves into a tiny room sitting shoulder to shoulder with strangers – this is a perfect recipe for spreading COVID! Well, thankfully the worst has passed, and my theater is now serving the public again. One thing I noticed is that during the shut-down people seemed to get a lot more interested in their air quality. Now that we are open again, I field a lot of questions about the HVAC system in the theater, and its impact on our air quality. What I can’t say to people is the truth – that the climate control system won’t save them, and the only way to have total safety for COVID was to stay home and watch movies on the TV. Of course I would never say that, it would be shooting my business in the foot, but it’s true. The air that people breathe out is recycled through the air filters of the HVAC system, but this is not a blanket immunity from harm. Being in a public place is always a risk, no matter how good the HVAC system is or how many air filters are being used. When you go to a theater, you are taking a risk, and although that risk is smaller than it used to be, it takes more than a good air filter to have true safety.