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Selfies of nurses and healthcare workers (HCWs) with painful personal protective equipment (PPE) injuries posted to social media provided early warning of the global PPE shortage impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to describe contextual factors associated with these injuries and describe factors that influenced posting on social media. A social media ethnographic study used purposeful sampling of Instagram posts (selfies/text) from March–October 2020 (170 posts; 26 countries). Posts were coded using focused content analysis to identify contextual factors. Data were reduced to understand and interpret the “essence” of the posts and discern themes. Themes included the following: (1) grueling shifts filled with unimaginable loss; (2) faces forever marked by the physical and emotional scars of COVID-19; (3) the COVID-19 battlefront; (4) dire and unprecedented PPE shortages; (5) pervasive fear (for self, colleagues, and family); (6) extreme emotional and physical consequences; (7) creating a collective voice. Examining injuries within the context of the nurses’/HCWs’ experiences provided new insights into the emotional scars, pervasive fears, and extreme emotional and physical consequences. An urgent need exists to address these harms and facilitate recovery. Before addressing emergency preparedness for the next pandemic event, psychosocial support is needed to address the harms incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it is critical to understand past experiences to truly prepare for future pandemics.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has spread rapidly across the globe, greatly affecting how humans as a whole interact, work and go about their daily life. One of the key pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) that is being utilised to return to the norm is the face mask or respirator. In this review we aim to examine face masks and respirators, looking at the current materials in use and possible future innovations that will enhance their protection against SARS-CoV-2. Previous studies concluded that cotton, natural silk and chiffon could provide above 50% efficiency. In addition, it was found that cotton quilt with a highly tangled fibrous nature provides efficient filtration in the small particle size range. Novel designs by employing various filter materials such as nanofibres, silver nanoparticles, and nano-webs on the filter surfaces to induce antimicrobial properties are also discussed in detail. Modification of N95/N99 masks to provide additional filtration of air and to deactivate the pathogens using various technologies such as low- temperature plasma is reviewed. Legislative guidelines for selecting and wearing facial protection are also discussed. The feasibility of reusing these masks will be examined as well as a discussion on the modelling of mask use and the impact wearing them can have. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and its applications to minimise or prevent the spread of the virus using face masks and respirators is also addressed. It is concluded that a significant amount of research is required for the development of highly efficient, reusable, anti-viral and thermally regulated face masks and respirators.

OBJECTIVE: Wearing medical personal protective equipment (PPE) substantially increases heat strain by elevating metabolic heat production while impairing heat dissipation. Cooling vests are a practical countermeasure, yet their efficiency depends on thermal conductivity and comfort. This study examined the thermoregulatory and perceptual responses to PPE use and evaluated the efficacy of a novel carbon-based cooling vest with enhanced heat transfer capacity. METHODS: A randomized crossover design was employed in which 12 participants completed 100 minutes of simulated healthcare activity in a climatic chamber (32 °C, 70% RH) under three conditions: medical scrubs (NoPPE), scrubs with PPE (PPE), and scrubs with PPE plus the cooling vest (PPE+Vest). Physiological, thermoregulatory, and perceptual variables were continuously monitored across conditions. RESULTS: Compared with PPE alone, PPE+Vest markedly attenuated heat strain, lowering core temperature [PPE 38.4, standard deviation (SD) 0.4, 0C versus PPE+Vest 37.5 (SD 0.4) 0C, P=0.001] and heart rate [PPE 123 (SD 11) bpm versus PPE+Vest 107 (SD 15) bpm, P<0.001], while improving thermal sensation [PPE 2.0 (SD 0.8) versus PPE+Vest 0.8 (SD 0.8), P=0.006]. These thermoregulatory benefits occurred without an increase in metabolic energy expenditure [PPE 317 (SD 50) kcal versus PPE+Vest 317 (SD 53) kcal, P=0.891]. CONCLUSIONS: The novel carbon-based cooling vest effectively suppressed heat storage by enhancing conductive heat transfer, leading to core and skin temperatures comparable to NoPPE. Importantly, despite its additional weight, the vest did not impose extra metabolic demands, offering a practical strategy to maintain thermal comfort and physiological stability during prolonged medical work in hot environments.

The existing deep learning-based Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) detectors can only detect limited types of PPE and their performance needs to be improved, particularly for their deployment on real construction sites. This paper introduces an approach to train and evaluate eight deep learning detectors, for real application purposes, based on You Only Look Once (YOLO) architectures for six classes, including helmets with four colours, person, and vest. Meanwhile, a dedicated high-quality dataset, CHV, consisting of 1330 images, is constructed by considering real construction site background, different gestures, varied angles and distances, and multi PPE classes. The comparison result among the eight models shows that YOLO v5x has the best mAP (86.55%), and YOLO v5s has the fastest speed (52 FPS) on GPU. The detection accuracy of helmet classes on blurred faces decreases by 7%, while there is no effect on other person and vest classes. And the proposed detectors trained on the CHV dataset have a superior performance compared to other deep learning approaches on the same datasets. The novel multiclass CHV dataset is open for public use.

The Phasmatodea Population Evolution (PPE) algorithm, inspired by the evolution of the phasmatodea population, is a recently proposed meta-heuristic algorithm that has been applied to solve problems in engineering. Chaos theory has been increasingly applied to enhance the performance and convergence of meta-heuristic algorithms. In this paper, we introduce chaotic mapping into the PPE algorithm to propose a new algorithm, the Chaotic-based Phasmatodea Population Evolution (CPPE) algorithm. The chaotic map replaces the initialization population of the original PPE algorithm to enhance performance and convergence. We evaluate the effectiveness of the CPPE algorithm by testing it on 28 benchmark functions, using 12 different chaotic maps. The results demonstrate that CPPE outperforms PPE in terms of both performance and convergence speed. In the performance analysis, we found that the CPPE algorithm with the Tent map showed improvements of 8.9647%, 10.4633%, and 14.6716%, respectively, in the Final, Mean, and Standard metrics, compared to the original PPE algorithm. In terms of convergence, the CPPE algorithm with the Singer map showed an improvement of 65.1776% in the average change rate of fitness value, compared to the original PPE algorithm. Finally, we applied our CPPE to stock prediction. The results showed that the predicted curve was relatively consistent with the real curve.

SARS-CoV-2, identified in Wuhan, China, for the first time in December 2019, is a new viral strain, which has not been previously identified in humans; it can be transmitted both by air and via direct and indirect contact; however, the most frequent way it spreads is via droplets. Like the other viruses belonging to the same family of coronaviruses, it can cause from mild flu-like symptoms, such as cold, sore throat, cough and fever, to more severe ones such as pneumonia and breathing difficulties, and it can even lead to death. Since no effective specific drug therapy has been found yet, nor any vaccine capable of limiting the spread of this pathogen, it is important for ways of preventing the spread of this infection to be established. The purpose of our research was to provide a protocol to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection in light of the limited information related to this coronavirus. In detail, we analysed and searched targeted evidence-based guidelines issued in the various countries affected by this epidemic up till now. In addition, we analyzed the recommendations for the prevention and control of other epidemics caused by other pathogens belonging to the same family of coronaviruses or others that present the same mechanisms of transmission. General organizational measures regarding the containment and management of the epidemiological emergency of COVID-19 have been imposed by the competent authorities for an adequate and proportionate management of the evolution of the epidemiological situation. The prevention and protection organizational measures therefore aim to minimize the probability of being exposed to SARS-CoV-2. For this purpose, measures must also be taken at work to avoid new infections or even the spread of the virus where it has already been present. Furthermore, environmental measures are aimed at reducing the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to individuals through contact with infected subjects, objects, equipment, or contaminated environmental surfaces. Protective devices must be used whenever there is potentially close contact with a suspect case, especially when the potentially infected person does not wear a surgical mask that could reduce the spread of viruses in the environment. By adopting this specific prevention and protection measures recommended in the workplace, it will be possible to help overcome this COVID-19 pandemic.

We evaluated effectiveness of personal protective measures against severe acute respiratory disease coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Our case-control study included 211 cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and 839 controls in Thailand. Cases were defined as asymptomatic contacts of COVID-19 patients who later tested positive for SARS-CoV-2; controls were asymptomatic contacts who never tested positive. Wearing masks all the time during contact was independently associated with lower risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection compared with not wearing masks; wearing a mask sometimes during contact did not lower infection risk. We found the type of mask worn was not independently associated with infection and that contacts who always wore masks were more likely to practice social distancing. Maintaining >1 m distance from a person with COVID-19, having close contact for <15 minutes, and frequent handwashing were independently associated with lower risk for infection. Our findings support consistent wearing of masks, handwashing, and social distancing to protect against COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic shortage in the medical supplies needed to treat the virus due to a massive surge in demand as the disease circled the globe during the first half of 2020. Prior to the crisis, there was an interdependence of trade and production for medical supplies, with advanced industrial countries like the United States and Germany specializing in the relatively high-tech medical devices sector, while low-cost production hubs such as China and Malaysia were leading producers of less technologically sophisticated personal protective equipment (PPE) products such as face masks, surgical gloves, and medical gowns. After the COVID-19 outbreak, global shortages of PPE products emerged as many affected countries imposed export controls and sought ways to boost domestic output. A case study of the face mask value chain in the United States shows misalignments between the priorities of U.S. federal government officials and the strategies of leading U.S. multinational producers of face masks, which resulted in exceptionally costly policy delays in terms of health outcomes. On balance, the U.S. shortage of N95 respirators during the COVID-19 pandemic is more a policy failure than a market failure. The global value chain framework highlights strategic options that could lead to more resilient supply chains and diversified sourcing patterns.

Sharps injuries are a recognized and preventable occupational risk among health care workers, particularly those who work in the perioperative setting. The recently updated AORN “Guideline for sharps safety” provides perioperative team members with information on identifying potential sharps hazards and interventions to prevent sharps injuries. This article provides an overview of the guideline and discusses recommendations for an organizational sharps safety program, evaluating and selecting devices with engineered sharps injury prevention features, using devices with engineered sharps injury prevention features, neutral zone and safer sharps handling, sharps disposal, and personal protective equipment and double gloving. It also includes a scenario related to the implementation of safety‐engineered sharps devices. Perioperative nurses should review the guideline in its entirety and apply the recommendations when handling or disposing of sharps.