This blog is not intended as advice. It is for educational and research purposes only. Read this disclaimer first if you want to read this post.
Out of the mire of bad advice, health authorities have emerged as authoritative. Much of their advice is good, but it comes with a major limitation.
When I started interacting with Social Scientists at Griffith University, the Work and Health major was multidisciplinary but I had only really worked with physical scientists and engineers. The experience was humbling and I got to understand my solutions to problems did not end with presenting the solution in a report. I had done the easy bit and the solution still had to be implemented and made sustainable. The people bit.
I have been trying to step back a bit from prevention of COVID-19 and I have realised that the solutions tend to be medical and with little understanding or appreciation of the technical limitations or other non-medical solutions. The whole thing has been “medicalised“.
In this context the solutions have a narrow disciplinary focus and will miss significant good controls.
A Hierachy of Controls is used in industry to control toxic exposures, Engineering controls trump Administrative Controls like Social Distancing and Hand Sanitiser. At the bottom of the ladder is Personal Protective Equipment like face masks and gloves. This Hierarchy of Controls if often embedded in Occupational Health and Safety legislation but is currently largely ignored with COVID-19.
The reason for this is very clear. When policy is made, it is done within the framework of understanding the problem in term of one’s own ability to solve it. This is to say ” if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” Like the doctor above with a hammer.
The solution is to have a more multidisciplinary team developing policy, or at least being open to suggestions. Medical, epidemiological and public health experts are there but ventilation engineers and occupational hygienists are missing.
My earlier bog points to the need to control faecal aerosols in public toilets. This is way up the Hierarchy of Controls and should have been one of the first controls considered.
