Policies on the use of respiratory protection for hospital health workers to protect from coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

Abstract

Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in China in December 2019 and as of 3rd March 2020, more than 90,800 cases and 3100 deaths have been reported from 72 countries (World Health Organisation (WHO) 2020). Most of the cases and deaths have occurred in Wuhan city in China where the outbreak started. As drugs or vaccines are not yet available, various non-pharmaceutical measures have been recommended to reduce the spread of infection, including hygiene and disinfection, improving environmental control, early detection and reporting, isolation, quarantine, use of personal protective equipment, social distancing and travel restrictions ((World Health Organization (WHO) 2014; Bell et al., 2006)). In most pandemic plans, tiered strategies which target front line health workers first, followed by the general community, are usually defined. Yet many of these strategies have some level of controversy attached and lack a large evidence base (MacIntyre et al., 2014). Some are starting to be phased out in some settings such as the use of thermal scanners at airports, due to a lack of evidence, especially for infections with pre-symptomatic transmission (Gunaratnam et al., 2014). However, the use of other interventions continues to be debated