Policies, procedures, and organizational algorithms for mitigating COVID-19 risk.
COVID-19 Playbook
PreventEpidemics.org
Website with PDF resources
Contact tracing for COVID-19: New considerations for its practical application
McKinsey & Co.
Web blog/article
May 2020
Contact tracing in the context of COVID-18
World Health Organization (WHO)
Core principles of contact tracing
U.S. CDC
Web page
COVID-19 Contact Tracing Playbook
ResolveToSaveLives.org
Website
Travel during the COVID-19 Pandemic
U.S. CDC
Web/blog article
Air travel requires spending time around large numbers of people, such as in security lines and communal gathering areas of airport terminals. Although many viruses do not spread easily on flights because of how air is circulated and filtered, social distancing is difficult on crowded flights. Sitting within 6 feet of others, sometimes for hours, could increase risk of contracting COVID-19.
COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool
Georgia Tech
Interactive website
Before vaccines are proven effective and become widely available, government, organizations, and individuals can implement strategies to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection and the resulting COVID-19 disease. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) include social distancing/physical distancing/ border closures, school closures, isolation of symptomatic individuals and their contacts and large-scale lockdown of populations. Most of these strategies involve behavior change. Evidence from prior pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic, suggest that behavior change is a necessary component of responding to the currentCOVID-19 pandemic.
Engineering-based interventions, such as additions or modifications to HV/AC systems, implementation of dust suppression measures, and other solutions can be effective at limiting the spread of infectious respiratory diseases. Because they do not require behavior change on the part of individuals or oversight and enforcement measures by organizations.
Dust suppression has been proven effective at reducing the number of airborne organisms. During World War I, sailors aboard U.S. Navy ships applied oil to floors and wool blankets to reduce the amount of dust in the air. Later studies indicate that the practice reduced airborne organisms by 75% to 90%. However, studies conducted on soldiers between 1944 and 1945 and on sailors between 1945 and 1946 failed to document a beneficial effect from oiling blankets and floors during outbreaks of acute respiratory disease.
Best Practices in the Sterilization of Transit Property
Noel McCarthy
Web article
April 2020
Bus Transit Operators
U.S. CDC
Website
April 2020
Before vaccines are proven effective and become widely available, government, organizations, and individuals can implement strategies to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection and the resulting COVID-19 disease. Most of these strategies involve behavior changebehavior change. Evidence from prior pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic, suggest that behavior change is a necessary component of responding to the current pandemic.
In the mid-1800s, Ignaz Semmelweis introduced hand-washing into the standard medical protocol for reducing infection risk. By 1848, one year after instituting a hand-washing policy in an obstetric clinic in AustriaAustria, maternal death rate had declined by 87 percent.
Before vaccines are proven effective and become widely available, government, organizations, and individuals can implement strategies to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection and the resulting COVID-19 disease. Most of these strategies involve behavior change. Evidence from prior pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic, suggest that behavior change is a necessary component of responding to the current pandemic.
Allegrante et al published a review of U.S. CDC recommendations for individual behavior change to help reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. They suggest that adherence to these guidelines is dependent on an individual's relationship with multiple layers of society.
John P. Allegrante, PhD et al (May 2020) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2020.05.004
Allegrante et al find:
Such multilevel studies are necessary to further understand the influences on protective behavior and evaluate the effect of novel behavioral interventions, especially those that are digitally mediated, to facilitate adoption and maintenance of COVID-19‒preventive behaviors.
A 2005 meta-analysis of non-vaccine interventions to prevent infectious acute respiratory disease (ARD) in military training centers found many types of policies and protocols which result in lower rates of infection. The meta-analysis, published by Terrence Lee et al, evaluated a sample of 38 population-based studies.
A 2001 study of U.S. Army recruits found that hand-washing results in reduced outpatient visits for respiratory illnesses. A review of clinical records from 1996 through 1998 (representing 1,089,800 person-weeks) found that frequent hand-washers had fewer outpatient appointments for respiratory illnesses. After implementing a hand-washing program, researchers saw a 45% reduction in total outpatient visits for respiratory illness.
Handwashing and respiratory illness among young adults in military training1
Margaret A.K Ryan, Rebecca S Christian, Julie Wohlrabe
Web
Knowledge and Adoption of Community Mitigation Efforts in Mexico During the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic
Nancy J. Aburto, PhD, et al.
Web
2010
Preventing COVID-19 and Its Sequela: "There Is No Magic Bullet... It's Just Behaviors"
John P. Allegrante, M. Elaine Auld, Sundar Natarajan
Journal
August 2020
Selected nonvaccine interventions to prevent infectious acute respiratory disease
Terrence Lee, Nikki N. Jordan, Jose L. Sanchez, Joel C. Gaydos
Journal
April 2005
In the mid-1800s, Ignaz Semmelweis introduced hand-washing into the standard medical protocol for reducing infection risk. By 1848, one year after instituting a hand-washing policy in an obstetric clinic in Austria, maternal death rate had declined by 87 percent.
United Airlines to Maximize Ventilation System During Boarding and Deplaning
United Airlines
Press release
July 20, 2020