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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian J Radiol Imaging 2020; 30(02): 105-110
DOI: 10.4103/ijri.IJRI_569_20
Editorial

COVID 19- Tips for getting back to work

Anirudh Kohli
Head of Imaging, Breach Candy Hospital Trust, 60 Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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We are seeing the most unbelievable and unprecedented time of our lives accompanied with significant uncertainty as to what the future has in store for us. As lockdowns are eased, it’s time to get back to work! The pandemic is no way over, hence the risk of transmission and contraction of infection continues to remain significant. In Mumbai, we got it first and hard. Many parts of the country are yet to get hit! Sincerely hope they are spared, but it is better to be prepared.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 is the virus which causes COVID-19. This is a highly infectious disease which spreads human to human via droplets, aerosols and fomites. Materials which may carry infection on their surfaces are known as fomites, this is a new word for many. The virus may survive on different surfaces for different periods of time, cardboard 24 hours, stainless steel 48 hours and plastic 72 hours.[[1]]

Wherever there are regions of high human contact such as workplaces, social gatherings, entertainment zones, shopping areas, airports and during transportation, transmission may occur from human to human. The only way to attempt to control the spread is to break the human to human contact chain. This is the reason why lockdowns have been instituted, so that there is minimal human to human contact. However, for survival and combatting the infection, the high human contact zones during lockdown are healthcare facilities, supermarkets and pharmacies. Healthcare establishments are particularly hotspots for infection of uninfected patients as well as healthcare professionals. The imaging department is a critical component of any health care facility thus a high human contact zone. There is need for an SOP for imaging departments to limit transmission of disease from infected patients to healthcare workers, healthcare workers to other healthcare workers and infected healthcare workers to uninfected patients. We must not allow the imaging department to become a hotspot, and consequently if it becomes a containment zone, will be a disaster for any healthcare facility.

There are four main aspects in attempting to control transmission of disease in a healthcare facility. These are social distancing, personal protective equipment, hygiene and surface decontamination.



Publication History

Received: 06 July 2020

Accepted: 06 July 2020

Article published online:
19 July 2021

© 2020. Indian Radiological Association. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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  • References

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