COVID-19: Droplet precautions not airborne

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  1. What kind of precautions?

    • 4
      Droplet
    • 2
      Airborne

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Hey guys! So I haven’t posted on this site in a long time, I am now an RN... So it was put out today that in our hospital that we will be treating covi-19 patients on droplet precautions, not airborne. Are other hospitals doing this in other states? Kinda freaking out about treating these patient on droplet precautions only.

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Everything I have heard and read recommends only droplet precautions.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

The mode of transmission is droplet, and if it makes you feel better the WHO recommendation is for droplet precautions.

The issue is that what we typically use for droplet precautions doesn't necessarily do a lot to protect us from droplet transmission. It's no more effective when we use droplet isolation for the flu, the difference is that the stakes are much higher, which makes the inadequacies of a procedure mask more of an issue.

Procedure masks are designed to keep the wearer's secretions from escaping, or at least catch most of them. They certainly aren't ideal though for protecting the wearer, since when you inhale, the air will follow the path of least resistance which is through the gaps between the mask and your face.

Where I work, the required isolation precautions are droplet + contact, although we're wearing PAPRs with most confirmed and rule outs.

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Thanks for the response guys. Also, in my state we are running out of testing kits so we won’t even be testing all presumed cases unless we really need to (immunocompromised, underlying conditions, etc.) so that will definitely put us more at risk unfortunately because we will have patients that we will be caring for and won’t know if they have covid or not.

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