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The Filter is the AIOH’s new magazine, brought to you by the AIOH Communications and Marketing Committee. Formed in early 2021, we (the committee) aim to promote the Institute and the field of occupational hygiene to our members and key stakeholders.
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The Filter is the AIOH’s new magazine, brought to you by the AIOH Communications and Marketing Committee. Formed in early 2021, we (the committee) aim to promote the Institute and the field of occupational hygiene to our members and key stakeholders.
Are hotels really the safest places to hold people in quarantine?
Until we recognise the importance of aerosol spread and we don't put control measures in place, then we are setting ourselves up for continued failure.
Restrictions in Western Australia are slowly easing after a severe lockdown, but serious concerns remain about gaps in the hotel quarantine system.
Cardiologists, anaesthetists, general practitioners, nurses and physicians signed the letter, asking for aerosol scientists and occupational hygienist to be engaged, along with a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) expert, if they haven't been already.
"We believe experts from these three fields have an important role to play in elucidating the cause of viral spread both within the hotel, and in future planning for all hotel quarantine around Australia, and could piece together an important piece of this puzzle for the nation," the letter reads.
Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists President Elect Kate Cole said the group would use science and engineering to make sure that control measures were in place.
"We're really the science behind the safety," she said.
"We need to address and accept the risk of aerosol spread or airborne transmission, because that's a key piece that's missing here.
"No amount of reviewing CCTV footage is going to pick that up.
ABC N
