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Hospital Covid Outbreaks Caused in Part by Wrong Staff Getting PPE

by Michael Curzon
31 March 2021 11:25 AM

Covid outbreaks in hospitals have been caused in part by the wrong staff receiving full personal protective equipment (PPE), a new study suggests. Official guidelines have dictated that the best PPE should be given to doctors and nurses treating patients who require medical oxygen, but new research shows that less severely ill patients are more likely to infect people around them. The Telegraph has the story.

An international team of researchers has established that less severely ill patients are far more likely to infect people around them than those critical enough to require oxygen.

The findings appear to contradict official guidelines, which ration the best PPE to doctors and nurses treating patients who require medical oxygen, on the basis that doing so requires the performance of “aerosol-generating procedures”.

Often working in intensive care units, these staff are given eye protection, a tight fitting particle respirator mask, long-sleeved fluid-repellent gowns and gloves.

Those working with less ill Covid patients had to go without eye protection, were given only a standard surgical mask, as well as a disposable apron and gloves.

However, the new findings show that the typical activities of less severely ill Covid patients – breathing, talking, shouting, coughing and exercising – actually generated 100 times more aerosol particles than those receiving oxygen.

The study found that oxygen therapies – officially considered the most high-risk for infection – actually reduced the amount of aerosols.

It was carried out after figures emerged showing that staff working on wards who wear only standard surgical masks have around two to three times higher rates of infection than those working in ICU.

One of the study’s co-authors, Professor Euan Tovey, said that less severely ill Covid patients – who have been treated by doctors and nurses with less effective PPE – posed a great risk.

The coughing and laboured breathing common in patients with Covid produces a lot more droplets and aerosols than is produced by patients being treated with oxygen therapies.

Surgical facemasks provide inadequate protection against aerosols and staff safety can only be increased by more widespread use of specialised tight-fitting respirators – N95 or FFP3 masks – and increased indoor ventilation.

Also, as the respiratory therapies did not significantly increase aerosols, these treatments should be made widely available to patients with Covid who need them.

Another researcher, Professor Tim Cook, suggested that these findings warrant a change in policy regarding the rationing of PPE.

Our findings strongly support the re-evaluation of guidelines to better protect hospital staff, patients and all those on the front line who are dealing with people who have, or are suspected of having, Covid.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: HospitalsPPE

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14 Comments
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steve_w
steve_w
4 years ago

if you don’t need a mechanical ventilator you should be at home in bed with a lemsip

17
0
Occamsrazor
Occamsrazor
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_w

One of the very few plus points of this total shit show is that it might have stopped the type of plonker who would have gone to A&E with a broken nail or a bit of wind. But then I suppose their places might have been taken up by the ludicrous hyperchondriacs who are clearly actually having propaganda-induced panic attacks rather than genuinely suffering from the deadly Covid. Many of my mates have had Covid (as have I), but only one still claims she ‘almost died’. Not surprisingly she’s a self-obsessed drama queen.

20
0
steve_w
steve_w
4 years ago
Reply to  Occamsrazor

ha! yes – I think people should pay upfront for A&E or GP visit and get paid back if its not trivial

11
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  Occamsrazor

That was my conclusion when noting empty GP waiting areas during 3 appointments in the course of a week just over a month ago.
Absent the hypochondriacs with imaginary conditions who are most likely the same individuals still ‘shielding at home’ 12 months after the arrival of scary Covid.

13
0
BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
4 years ago
Reply to  Occamsrazor

I have a friend who talks on Facebook about her “recovery journey” after Covid. One step from “Covid survivor” type stuff.

She is a triathlete and had a high temp with increased heart rate during her infection. Had a check up and sent home.

8
0
LMS2
LMS2
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_w

Or given Ivermectin, dexamethasone, etc, to get them better faster and out of hospital. Or an asthma inhaler.

8
0
Fear is Finite
Fear is Finite
4 years ago

This PPE story is a diversion. Anecdotally, at my local hospital patients are being sent to Covid wards if they have respiratory symptoms, even if they test negative for the virus. They go in these wards without the virus, they come out with it. Sometimes in a box. Someone needs to get a proper investigative journalism hat on and actually uncover this outrage.

31
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  Fear is Finite

Last I remember reading (some months back) such was the scale of Government over-ordering of PPE that some Container docks were jammed solid with bulk containers full of PPE with nowhere to go.

7
0
Cheezilla
Cheezilla
4 years ago
Reply to  Fear is Finite

But these findings were discovered by an international team of researchers, I’ll have you know!

6
0
Cheezilla
Cheezilla
4 years ago

Official guidelines.
Drawn up by “experts” presumably. Who’d have thought it?!

9
0
steve_w
steve_w
4 years ago

“The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can give strong protection to children as young as 12, the two companies have announced following a trial.
In a small study involving 2,260 US volunteers aged 12 to 15, there were no cases of Covid-19 among those who have been fully vaccinated. Eighteen of those who received a placebo were infected.”

but how is their fertility?

15
0
LMS2
LMS2
4 years ago
Reply to  steve_w

How many of those infected had any symptoms?
If they don’t get symptoms, why do they need a vaccine?
If they don’t have symptoms, they don’t spread the virus, as illustrated in the article above, therefore they don’t need the vaccine.

16
0
BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
4 years ago
Reply to  LMS2

Sushhhhhhhhhhhhh!

4
0
Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
4 years ago

Quite a long time ago lockdownsceptics showed a chart that compared Covid deaths among working age people broken down by job type. It showed that health/care workers were no more likely to die from Covid than the working age population. This would appear to show that a supposed lack of PPE last spring was never a major problem despite all the media hype.

6
0

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