K. El-Boghdadly, D. J. Wong, C. Johnstone, I. Ahmad
Anaesthesia, 2020
and laryngoscopists’ health are reported in Table 1. WHO standard PPE was available for all intubations and was used in 70 (97%) cases. The absence of laryngoscopist illness in our service evaluation differs from the 10.7% incidence reported by ElBoghdadly et al. [1]. The potential reasons for this difference are: improved availability of PPE; reduced risk of selection bias; and a shorter follow-up period. El-Boghdadly et al. reported use of WHO standard PPE [3] in only 87.9% of cases and the level of training in the use of PPE is not reported [1]. A risk of the non-mandatory self-reporting method of El-Boghdadly et al. is the potential for reporting bias; that is, laryngoscopists who developed symptoms might have been more likely to self-report, leading to an overestimation of the incidence. In 99% of cases, the incubation period for COVID-19 is 14 days or less [4]. The use of a longer follow-up period by El-Boghdadly et al. (40 days) [1] may also have led to an overestimation, due to unrelated acquisition of COVID-19. In summary, El-Boghdadly et al. highlight the potential risk of intubating COVID-19 patients, whereas our service evaluation demonstrates that effective procurement, usage and decontamination of WHO standard PPE can reduce this risk. If elective surgery is to be re-established whereas COVID-19 is prevalent, the focus on effective PPE must be maintained in order to minimise the risk of COVID-19 transmission to healthcareworkers. C. J.Mullington P. Shetty J. Dalton Imperial CollegeHealthcareNHS Trust, London, UK Email: c.mullington@imperial.ac.uk
Cited by 1 publication.
Field of study: Medicine