Alternative PPE's to wearing surgical masks?
Apart from wearing the surgical mask, what other options are there for employees to close their mouth to prevent saliva from leaving their mouth to the next person while talking? Any recommendation will help.
Thanks,
LL
Maintaining a social distance?
You could always make face masks (or have the employee prior to shift start up). Some nylon string, cloth and hot glue. Or just purchase some face masks.
Social distancing, face masks, face shields.
Apart from wearing the surgical mask, what other options are there for employees to close their mouth to prevent saliva from leaving their mouth to the next person while talking? Any recommendation will help.
Thanks,
LL
Space people 2 metres apart or more. If not possible, use screens or proper rated masks but I urge you to go for the spacing.
The reason why is right now, across the world there are a shortage of masks to protect health workers. Do you want to be the food company buying up all of the masks which leaves Doctors exposed? I don't.
Secondly, much like gloves, PPE can confer a false sense of security. People can assume gloved hands are clean, even when they're not. Removal of gloves is also key. Remove them badly and you will contaminate your hands. Same with a mask. Issuing masks is likely to result in people not complying with social distancing of 2 metres. Surgical masks quickly become useless on protection for the individual anyway and if removed badly, you can contaminate your face. So for example, to remove a mask correctly, you should remove any gloves (properly) then wash hands, then remove mask, then wash hands.
Here's a really good infographic around it.
Tell them to stop talking or minimize their small talks. Let them understand how the virus spread through aerosols from their saliva.
There is still no recommendation from PHAC to use face mask - for whatever reason, we don't know.
I can't find it now, but there was an article from doctors / epidemiologists about the virus spreading through droplets versus aerosol. The more concerning was the droplets and prevention is with everyone wearing a face mast of some sort.
We donated almost all of our face masks to the local hospital. We only have about 2 dozen on hand now which we are saving for our "disinfection team".
I'll see if I can find that article and post it here.