Just the Facts: Protecting frontline clinicians during the COVID-19 pandemic

Atkinson, Paul; French, James; Lang, Eddy; McColl, Tamara; Mazurik, Laurie

Individual jurisdictions will have different policies and procedures for staff screening and testing. What is clear is that an active screening procedure for staff, preventing symptomatic or potentially infected staff from working among well staff and patients is vital in preventing super-spreaders. Screening questions about travel, contacts, contamination events, and symptoms are the minimum required, with temperature checks for staff before each shift providing additional screening power. Self-isolation, self-monitoring, and testing of all exposed or symptomatic staff members is important in preventing disease spread. Expedited results in consultation with the local infectious disease department are paramount to maintain frontline staffing. It can be difficult to define exposure in frontline staff; however, close contact with a high-risk or positive case without wearing the appropriate standard of PPE is a reasonable definition.