A prominent group of academics is pushing for Biden administration to move faster and take stronger measures to protect high-risk workers from getting into the air for the coronavirus, urging standards mandatory to help protect dangerous workplaces including health care, food processing and prisons.
The researchers say that even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged that the virus can spread through small airborne particles, it needs to take “strong immediate” steps to update its guidelines to reduce risk.
“This is the opportunity now,” said David Michaels, a professor at George Washington University and former director of Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Changes to help reduce the spread of the virus could include more widespread use of N95 masks in workplaces as well as better ventilation, according to a letter sent Monday to the CDC.
High-profile signatories include Rick Bright, who was ousted from the Trump administration after pushing for more attention to science; Michael Osterholm, advisor to the Biden transition team; and Virginia Tech aerosol scientist Linsey Marr.
CDC’s current guidelines reflect the country’s first supply chain crisis, which has been partially mitigated, the letter says. They also do not recognize months of research which has shown the higher risks faced by key workers in a number of industries.
The letter criticizes current guidelines that those outside healthcare should not receive N95 masks, and that even within health care these masks should be reserved for employees who are performing “aerosol generation” methods as intubations.
However, since these guidelines were written, research has shown that fatal outbreaks have occurred in meat packing plants and prisons, and aerosol emissions are believed to be at play. And within health care, researchers found that “front door” workers such as paramedics and those in emergency rooms faced the highest risks of infection.
“It is of great concern to me that health care and essential workers who require this level of additional protection have gone so far as to provide an emergency level of emergency care and without appropriate respiratory protection,” said Bright in an interview.
An even more recent study that closely examined the September Covid-19 revolution in a Boston hospital with “mature” infectious control practices showed that health technicians caught the virus from a patient while they were wearing surgical masks and face shields – a common personal protective device for health workers caring for Covid patients. This finding led the authors to recommend a more widespread use of N95n across hospitals.
KHN and The Guardian have written about hundreds of more than 3,400 healthcare workers who died with Covid for the Lost on the Frontline project. The families of many employees have expressed concern about PPE in at least 100 cases, while many others were unaware of what a loved one was spending. Employee complaints to government officials about protective equipment, one story in the series found, preceded the death of a worker in dozens of cases.
Jane Thomason, chief business hygienist for National Nurses United, who was not involved in the letter, praised its contents and said it reflected many nurses’ concerns in the past year.
To add to the list of concerns, Thomason said the CDC guidelines do not reveal research showing predisposed and asymptomatic transmission of the virus is common.
The current guidelines for hospitals that only screen patients with Covid-like symptoms mean that many with the virus pass through and are cared for by staff. the suboptimal PPE. Thomason said solutions would include universal patient testing and the provision of the N95 as the minimum respiratory protection in a hospital.
“The emergency standards that the CDC has created are essentially serving as a record for race-to-bottom employers,” she said. “I think it’s appalling that these are the same issues this year. year. “
The CDC did not respond Tuesday night. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has already announced a detailed review of the organization’s guidelines, based on “the best available evidence,” the letter notes.
That guidance will set a standard that workplace safety regulators can enforce, said Lisa Brosseau, a University of Minnesota aerosol scientist who signed the letter. She said CDC’s recognition of the need to protect workers from exposure to the virus will give OSHA more opportunity to keep employees safe.
Dr Donald Milton, a professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who signed the letter, said now was the time to see how low we can control virus levels – so let’s not we need to close the country again if there is another pandemic.
“There has to be a commitment to take it out and do what needs to be done so that we never have to do it again,” he said.
|
|
