Protecting health care workers in the front line: Innovation in COVID-19 pandemic

摘要

The COVID-19 pandemic has now infected almost 700 000 people, killing more than 30 000 people. Although Singapore was previously able to control the rapid rise in daily cases through tight quarantine, rapid contact tracing and strict social distancing measures, our health care institutions are now facing a second surge from imported cases. The protection of health care workers (HCWs) is vital in continuing patient care in health care systems that are currently challenged by the pandemic, but also important in ensuring they do not spread the virus. In our country, there are no guidelines or unified practices as to the degree of HCW protection required for performing routine throat swabs. A unique feature of many testing venues in Singapore is that they are outdoors with the average of 30°C tropical weather, rendering the prolonged use of conventional personal protective equipment (PPE) or full-body protection uncomfortable. The widespread incidence and expected protracted duration of the COVID-19 pandemic has also prompted concerns for minimising the use of PPE especially for high-volume or brief procedures with a short duration of high-risk patient contact, such as throat swabbing. We offer this invention as a versatile component of a modular system that can be adapted to several situations and clinic setups. HCWs no longer have to change their disposable face shield, cap and gown between patients. This has allowed us to conserve our current PPE supply. In time when testing may be carried out more extensively in community settings, we hope that this would ease logistic difficulties in streamlining the need to test a heavy caseload.