Together, we can make your essential service at court the safest part of your day. Planning for a “clean out and clean in” sitting day will protect you and help you to protect your colleagues and keep your family safe. Let me introduce our “CoVid Coach”, Dr Robin Griffiths.
Robin is a specialist in occupational medicine and public health medicine, and he is Director of Occupational and Aviation Medicine, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand. He heads a virtual department of 18 academic staff based in North America, Middle East, Europe, and Australasia. They provide international distance teaching and research supervision to students within every continent (including Antarctica), in aviation medicine, occupational medicine, and aeromedical retrieval and transport.
He is Corporate Medical Adviser to Airways New Zealand and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission. In this capacity, he worked on the Pandemic Plan for SARS, MERS, Ebola, Measles, Avian, and Swine Flu. Since early January he has worked on public health and workplace safety surrounding the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. He is also an adjunct associate professor at West Virginia University and has held adjunct appointments at the University of Washington and Harvard Medical School Dubai Center. He is the American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine Foundations Program Director and International Section Member of the ACOEM House of Delegates. His wife is our very own Jill Moss — District Court Judge. Here’s what Dr Robin Griffiths has to say:
Now that we are in lockdown, and as community transmission starts to ramp up, it is time for us on the front line to learn how to “sit safely”. The greatest hazard is from infected people; as the Prime Minister just said, we should all behave as though we are infected (as potentially we may be).
I listened to a doctor on national radio explain her “clean routine” upon leaving and re-entering her house. Given we touch surfaces, handles, keyboards, letters and papers, chairs and desks. Given we walk in the footsteps of others. Given the duration of this little critters’ surface survival ability of 72hrs. Given the risk of transfer from surface contact to work clothing, then steering wheels, all via your hands or soles of your shoes, we should plan for the potential to head home as a neat little infected “essential worker”.
With increasing and undocumented community transmission, movements in the community are the most hazardous parts of your day. You may meet infected people and engage with infected objects or walk where others have been. You must assume that you have the virus on your hands or soles of your shoes whenever you have been in your community. So please:
Minimise your community contact, such as visiting supermarkets, gas stations, and dairies, as much as you can.
Keep out, speak out by not entering the 2m safety radius around other people, staff. or otherwise, to maintain social distancing at work. If you see someone not complying with this important safety measure, act decisively to stop the hazard.
Use disposable gloves or a tissue for touching swipe cards and keypads when entering buildings. Wash your hands as soon as you get to work and before you touch anything and wash your hands and change your clothes as soon as you get home.
Where you must touch anything that has been touched by other people, such as the nozzle handle at gas stations, door handles, lift buttons, plastic surfaces, or paper documents, use disposable gloves and please wash or sanitise your hands.
Don't touch any surface in public areas that you don't have to. Use PayWave at the shop or gas station, don't hold the handrails, and don't lean on surfaces that someone may have sneezed or coughed on.
Cleanliness is everything. Gross contamination like spilled food or coffee, mucus, or dirt, limits the effectiveness of sanitisers. Clean like you are Howard Hughes. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is very fragile and it’s readily killed by soap and warm water on your hands, laundry powder on your clothes, and dishwash on your food utensils.
Clean your mobile devices regularly. Wipe them with a microfibre cloth and a smear of alcohol gel, or with an antiseptic wipe. You can use 10% bleach on a cloth, but not sprayed.
At work, wash your hands and clean your workstation thoroughly before starting a continuous duty period. Do this in reverse order at the end of every duty period.
Wash your hands carefully, or use the alcohol-based hand cleaners, before any communal activity such as a meeting or briefing, or meal times. “Carefully” means lathering your hands with soap and warm water for long enough to sing “Happy Birthday” TWO OR THREE times and rinsing and drying thoroughly. There are great reviews of how washing your hands with soap and warm water works to kill the virus:
Monitor your contacts carefully. If anyone in your recent contacts or ‘bubble’ becomes unwell, don't come to work, and talk to Te Whare.
If someone in your household becomes a confirmed or suspected case or a contact, seek medical advice and contact Te Whare.
Remember the cough and sneeze etiquette. Use your elbow, not your hand., and ALWAYS cover your nose and mouth.
Some people have worried that the virus could be transmitted on contact lenses. The American Optometry Association says that contact lenses are safe. Note, though, that this relies on extreme caution about sanitising the hands, lenses and ancillary equipment when putting in the lenses. Points to note:
If you have lenses that are unstable and have a tendency to dislodge or fall out so you have to fiddle around with the lens and/or your eye in uncontrolled situations, and without the chance to wash your hands, then glasses are more sensible
Contact lenses often change the contour of the cornea, the clear lining at the front of the eye. Suddenly changing from lenses to specs can cause some distortion of your vision. Change over when you have several hours to adjust.
Remember that the virus is very fragile and easily killed on the skin, and on lenses and contact lens solution bottles. Infection this way is very unlikely, as long as you take care.
The potential for infection comes from your hands not your lenses. Don't risk a chemical eye irritation by oversterilising the lenses. This would increase your vulnerability to infection. Do wash your hands really, really carefully before touching the lenses or your eyes.
The decision will depend on your personal circumstances