Coronavirus: ‘We must do better keeping staff safe’, say doctors and scientists

Doctors and scientists have signed an open letter calling for urgent upgrades of respiratory protection for healthcare workers.

Queensland University of Technology professor Lidia Morawska.

Hundreds of doctors, occupational health experts and scientists have signed an open letter calling for urgent upgrades of respiratory protection for healthcare and border control workers and improvements to ventilation in hotel quarantine.

Following the admission from the West Australian government that the security guard infected with COVID-19 at the Four Points Sheraton hotel in Perth was not wearing a mask at all times during his duties, healthcare workers have called for protection to be worn at all times by quarantine workers.

The open letter, co-ordinated by the group Healthcare Workers Australia, has been signed by the world’s top aerosol scientists together with almost 400 other doctors and academics.

“Australia must take urgent co-ordinated national action on aerosol transmission of COVID-19,” the letter says. ­“Urgent upgrades of respiratory protection for healthcare workers are needed, as well as ­improved ventilation in healthcare settings, other indoor public spaces and private homes.”

The doctors say that Australia is lagging behind the World Health Organisation, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in recognising the airborne spread of COVID-19 as a primary mode of transmission.

“Despite overwhelming evidence to support airborne, or aerosol, transmission of SARS-CoV-2, this has not translated into appropriate … public health and infection prevention control measures across Australian jurisdictions,” the letter says. “Australian guidelines continue to stress droplet and contact transmission, which have led to a focus on measures of limited or insufficient effectiveness, such as deep-cleaning, handwashing, surface disinfection and 1.5m physical distancing.

“It is imperative that people in all sectors understand the risk of airborne transmission.

“This lack of acknowledgment of aerosol transmission has had far-reaching effects. It has contributed to the healthcare outbreaks associated with over 3500 healthcare worker infections in Victoria. More recently, essential workers, such as paramedics and bus drivers transporting people in hotel quarantine, continue to use ‘droplet and contact precautions’, wearing poorly fitted surgical masks.”

One of the signatories to the letter is one of Australia’s foremost aerosol scientists, Lidia Morawska, a professor at the Queensland University of Technology. Professor Morawska said Australia had so far failed to respond adequately to the ­increasing evidence that COVID-19 is airborne.

“Does Australia have any policies to deal with airborne transmissions of COVID-19? I don’t think so,” Professor Morawska said. “Have you ever heard any guidelines, any recommendations of improving ventilation, checking ventilation or doing anything to the ventilation? I haven’t.”