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A few days ago a cleaner contracted Covid-19 in the hotel quarantine system (a thread). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-07/coronavirus-queensland-quarantine-hotel-worker-tests-positive/13034046
Queensland hotel quarantine protocols appear to recognise the possibility of airborne spread (I’m assuming that publicly available Qld Health documents online today are current). https://www.health.qld.gov.au/public-health/industry-environment/disease-prevention-control/covid19-industry/covid-19-cleaning-disinfection-waste-management
For example, they mandate waiting 30 minutes after a guest leaves before a cleaner may enter. They promote opening windows for ventilation. But paradoxically they do not mandate airborne precautions for the cleaner despite this.
Precautions taken in hospitals appear entirely different. https://www.health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/1003487/ppe-clinicians-infosheet.pdf You can be near a patient - only 1.5 metres away - and don’t need a mask. Even a surgical mask. Presumably even the advice to wear masks at all times in public in Greater Brisbane overrides this?
Note that they state that viable virus is not present in air. This is plainly untrue according to peer-reviewed research. Virus has been isolated and cultured from air.
So currently published guidelines indicate you do not need to wear a mask when directly caring for a Covid patient in a hospital. When immediately close to a patient, no airborne precautions are generally needed. But when you are driving alone in Brisbane, you need to wear a mask
Here are current alerts for Queensland: https://www.qld.gov.au/health/conditions/health-alerts/coronavirus-covid-19/current-status/contact-tracing - if you were in a *supermarket* at these times you need to not only test, but isolate for fourteen days. But if you were IN A ROOM with a confirmed Covid patient at >1.5m, you do not need any PPE and can go home
All this is from guidelines available on the websites as of 9am on the 11th of January. Ironically some of the hospital advice is presumably superseded by the stricter advice to the general public. @NjbBari3 @CollignonPeter @peripatetical @YvetteDAth @rachelmealey
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