Biosafety at Home: How to Translate Biomedical Laboratory Safety Precautions for Everyday Use in the Context of COVID-19

Reina Ortiz, Miguel; Grijalva, Mario J.; Turell, Michael J.; Waters, William F.; Montalvo, Andres Carrazco; Mathias, Derrick; Sharma, Vinita; Renoy, Christian Fierro; Suits, Paul; Thomas, Stephen J.; Leon, Renato

Population adoption of social distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic is at times deficient, increasing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Healthcare workers and those living in areas of intense transmission may benefit from implementing biosafety measures in their daily lives. A mixed-methods approach, combining components of single negotiation text and the Delphi method, was used to create a COVID-19 biosafety-at-home protocol. A consensus building coordinator liaised with 12 experts to develop the protocol over 11 iterations. Experts had more than 200 years of combined experience in epidemiology, virology, infectious disease prevention, and public health. A flyer, created from the final protocol, was professionally designed and initially distributed via social media and institutional websites/emails in Ecuador beginning on May 2, 2020. Since then, it has been distributed in other countries, reaching ∼7,000 people. Translating research laboratory biosafety measures for the home/street environment might be challenging. The biosafety-at-home flyer addresses this challenge in a user-friendly format.