The Swiss Cheese Model & Covid-19

Studies conducted over the last 18 months on Covid-19 evidently show the infection to be primarily airborne. Nirvana Being conducted a study with Dr. Nitish Dogra, MD, MPH (Johns Hopkins University, United States) to understand essential means of preventing Covid-19 in children. Dr. Dogra in his study used the Swiss Cheese Model to explain that any single action for prevention is not adequate to protect against covid, and it is infact dependent on a number of precautions that an individual has to take at a personal and at a social level to minimise the chances of transmission.

Since mid-august, we have been hearing that schools are preparing to open their gates for children soon. There are various precautions that will be compromised with children being exposed to one another some of which include lack of physical distancing and children may not be able to follow hand hygiene and cough etiquettes as efficiently. Classrooms tend to have large number of children in a single room, therefore resulting in limited ventilation which is a cause for concern. The government has listed various protocols that should be followed but the lack of financial aid by them to support the schools and such institutions have been an impediment in the implementation of such protocols and guidelines.

Covid-19, as we all know, can either be symptomatic or asymptotic, so even if children are not showing symptoms, they could be carries and infect people around them. The long-term effects of COVID-19 are still unknown, whether or not it impacts the children’s development in the long run.

Considering all the issue discussed above, Dr. Dogra highly recommends the use of masks as it plays a vital role in the intervention strategy to protect transmission of Covid-19. Evidence from other studies suggest that wearing masks not only makes the transmission less likely, but has also shown results to substantially reduce the hospitalisation rates.

It is not easy to constantly wear a mask for a long duration, especially for children. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that children are well aware about the correct way of using the mask and be taught to wear it at all times. Other methods of intervention are using face shields or spectacles. Schools, on the other hand, need to ensure that teachers and staff members are vaccinated and are using masks at all times. Improved ventilations through open doors, windows and fans, air filtration to filter airborne particles and purification methods using ultra violet germicidal irradiation protection also need to be carried out.

However, Dr. Dogra advised in his study that children below the age of 2 years, or the ones having any breathing difficulty, or who are unable to remove the masks on their own when needed, should avoid using masks, and a doctor must always be consulted before you make your children wear a mask.

To sum it up, it is the need of the hour to protect the children and teach them the importance of masking, by either explaining the cons of such exposure, or by playing with them and telling them it is a part of their super-hero costume. To facilitate this, Nirvana Being’s range of Nirvana Masks and Airific N95 masks for kids come in designs with your child’s favourite Disney, Marvel, Barbie and Pixar characters, along with a nanotechnology layer in the centre, which gives them maximum protection and all the fun, packed in a set of 2 masks.nir