So when it’s above 26-27 Celsius and above 50-60% humidity, I want my indoor AC if I can get it. Living without it for about 7 Ottawa summers was unpleasant. Especially the magical summer of 2018 when it was like a swamp in this valley for two months. I know, the whining of a temperate zone man.

But, my love of cool doesn’t come with as much love of dry as it used to. I used to revel that my old apartment was kept above 23 degrees Celsius [sometimes 25] in winter by its crappy hot water radiators, and with humidity under 30%. Only when it had gone down to 20 or less was I concerned.

So a couple of winters ago I started having chronic low-degree visual blur and constant eye itching. By the end I thought I had some sort of horrid eye disease and it felt one night like some tiny lifeform was gouging its way out of my skull through my eyeballs.

I’d never had dry eyes before. Had no idea it could get that bad. The optometrist’s first words on finishing her inspection were, “You have few tears”.

I resisted the temptation to say I’d wept them all. She just meant my eyes had grown a tad dry. A big tad.

Between that and dried up sinuses, I think that apartment was trying to kill me with dryness in winter, dampness in spring and fall, and humidity in summer.

But it gave me a new appreciation of the perils of dry air in any environment. I got more colds toward the end, too.

You’d think health care practitioners would have known this, even if they didn’t have the most up to date models of microbial life cycle as revealed here.

Not that I’d want to be in an un-air-conditioned hospital in July with a case of swamp crotch on top of whatever put me in there. But there needs to be a happy medium of interior environment.

I get it’s hard in large buildings with a lot of rooms and variable size spaces, but even office buildings of some age seem to manage the HVAC somewhat tolerably.

My office this morning in a decaying 40-year-old building with many systemic problems was nonetheless at 21°C and 60% humidity as measured by an analog thermo/hygrometer. It mostly retains those conditions year round regardless of the outside. Which as it happens today is reported to be 15°ree;C and 69% humidity outside. A relatively dry day compared to most of our recent fall weather.

Hospitals have a lot more doors opening and closing, frantic movement of people and equipment, and so on. But it should still be possible, and judged highly important, to keep the climate controlled.

Maybe they all just loved dry air as I once did.