Let’s get back to work: Preventive biological cycle management of COVID-19 in the workplace

COVID-19 in the Workplace in Indonesia

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been declared a pandemic because of its worldwide spread. The COVID-19 pandemic does not only impact public health but also the operations of businesses and workers’ safety in their workplace. The objectives of this study were to provide a broad perspective of COVID-19 prevention and control implementation in industries, investigate barriers and challenges as well as drivers in implementing COVID-19 prevention and control, and provide key recommendations to the policy makers regarding COVID-19 prevention and control in industries. This study was conducted through online interviews with selected organizations in various industries which were selected by the granting body, including agriculture and animal husbandry; construction; manufacturing; and logistic and goods transportation. It also involved policy makers from government agencies including the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Health, Indonesian Safety and Health Council, International Labor Organization, and Indonesian COVID-19 Task Force. The participants of this study were chosen using convenience sampling. The findings of this study indicate that health protocols are implemented to varying degrees in companies, both within and across the sectors, and that drivers to comply with the Health Protocols include compliance, business continuity, and top management commitment. The significant barriers and challenges include a perceived lack of clear direction from the government, rapid changes in directives’, poor worker awareness, and limited organizational resources. The key recommendations to the policy maker include harmonization of the guidelines and legislation, additional schemes to provide funding in the COVID-19 prevention and control implementation, as well as facilitate the ongoing education of the general working public.

Understanding uptake of prevention and mitigation of COVID-19 at work actions in Iran

BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has required organizations to make changes to ways of working to prevent and mitigate COVID-19 in employees.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the workplace response to COVID-19 in Iran.

METHODS

255 organizations completed a two-part survey. Part 1 collected data describing the business; part 2 comprised the International Labor Organization (ILO) 30-item Prevention and Mitigation of COVID-19 at Work Actions Checklist. A four-point Likert scale was used to score each item according to whether preventative measures had been actioned.

RESULTS

We found a dichotomy of commitment to managing COVID-19 at work. 42.5%of organizations had fully implemented the ILO recommended preventative actions, and 45.6%workplaces had not implemented any. Large organizations had significantly more preventative actions than SMEs; the healthcare sector had significantly better COVID-19 mitigation measures in place than construction projects; and organizations with a health and safety management system had significantly more prevention actions in place.

CONCLUSIONS

ILO provided a good framework to support risk assessment of COVID-19, however only half the organizations were undertaking the necessary biological hazard control actions to prevent COVID-19 at work. There remains a need to understand the inaction of organizations who do not risk assess despite being in a pandemic.

The role of ambient parameters on transmission rates of the COVID-19 outbreak: A machine learning model

BACKGROUND

In recent years the relationship between ambient air temperature and the prevalence of viral infection has been under investigation.

OBJECTIVE

The study was aimed at providing the statistical and machine learning-based analysis to investigate the influence of climatic factors on frequency of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Iran.

METHOD

The data of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and some climatic factors related to 31 provinces of Iran between 04/03/2020 and 05/05/2020 was gathered from official resources. In order to investigate the important climatic factors on the frequency of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in all studied cities, a model based on an artificial neural network (ANN) was developed.

RESULTS

The proposed ANN model showed accuracy rates of 87.25%and 86.4%in the training and testing stage, respectively, for classification of COVID-19 confirmed cases. The results showed that in the city of Ahvaz, despite the increase in temperature, the coefficient of determination R2 has been increasing.

CONCLUSION

This study clearly showed that, with increasing outdoor temperature, the use of air conditioning systems to set a comfort zone temperature is unavoidable. Thus, the number of positive cases of COVID-19 increases. Also, this study shows the role of closed-air cycle condition in the indoor environment of tropical cities.

COVID-19 in Workplaces: Secondary Transmission

OBJECTIVES

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) contagion at work is well studied for healthcare workers, however it is not enough assessed in other working settings. Very little is known, indeed, about the risk of COVID-19 transmission through occupational exposure in non-health working places. This study aims to describe a COVID-19 cluster among workers in an office in Italy.

METHODS

This was a retrospective observational study on a cluster of COVID-19 that occurred from 20 November through 3 December 2020 in a group of six colleagues (A-F) working in the same office full time 5 days a week, 8 h a day. The workers used the following prevention measures: social distancing (desks were >1 m, 1.76-5.01 m range), plexiglas panels, hands disinfection, and use of face mask. However, they did not wear face mask when in static position sitting at their desk and they did not aerate the place frequently.

RESULTS

The disease spread from one worker (subject A) to four (80%) of the five colleagues (subjects B-F). Only subject D was negative to COVID-19 on 14 days after last contact with subject A (20 November 2020) as confirmed by nasopharyngeal swab testing. Subject D, in particular, did not contact subject A in the 48 h before symptoms onset. COVID-19 positivity of subject A was promptly communicated to the colleagues, who started self-isolation from their relatives and none of their households were infected. COVID-19 transmission was observed only in households of subject A.

CONCLUSIONS

The rapid communication of COVID-19 positivity to the colleagues and the prompt isolation of index case's close contacts allowed to eliminate the secondary transmission to their households. The contagion of index case's colleagues occurred from second day before symptoms onset. Distancing of >1 m, use of plexiglass panels, sanitizing hand gel, and inconstant use of face mask may not be enough for infection prevention in closed places with poor ventilation and high occupancy.