The operators of these facilities have changed operational protocols to ensure safety of workers and also food safety. The use of face shields significantly reduce the amount of inhalation exposure to influenza virus, another droplet-spread respiratory virus.
In Australia, a part of Victoria's response to the COVID-19 crisis, is that meat works will move to two-thirds production with workers to be dressed in full protective personal clothing, including gowns and face shields.In Nigeria, some of the processors are already adopting the change to ensure safety of workers and food safety.
Meat processing facilities have taken steps to ensure safety such as coordination with state and local health agencies to reduce transmission or prevent ongoing exposure within the workplace, including offering testing to workers.There is daily screening of personnel prior to entering the plant and also temperature screening. An aggressive sanitation protocol throughout the day in all common areas and office spaces as well as additional cleanings each night.
Major food processors have installed protective barriers on the production floor between employees and provides full face shields for personnel performing any job where the installation of a protective barrier is not feasible due to the movements inherent in the performance of the job.
Read why a face shield is better than a mask.
Reporting in the April 29 Journal of the American Medical Association, experts led by Dr. Eli Perencevich, of the university's department of internal medicine, and the Iowa City VA Health Care System, said the face shield's moment may have come.
While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began advocating the use of cloth masks to help stop COVID-19 transmission in April, laboratory testing "suggests that cloth masks provide [only] some filtration of virus-sized aerosol particles."
According to Perencevich's group, "face shields may provide a better option." To be most effective in stopping viral spread, a face shield should extend to below the chin. It should also cover the ears and "there should be no exposed gap between the forehead and the shield's headpiece," the Iowa team members said.
Shields are usually more comfortable to wear than masks, and they form a barrier that keeps people from easily touching their own faces. When speaking, people sometimes pull down a mask to make things easier -- but that isn't necessary with a face shield. And "the use of a face shield is also a reminder to maintain social distancing, but allows visibility of facial expressions and lip movements for speech perception,"
Research from Johns Hopkins University has found that Covid-19 specifically can be contracted via the eyes, “through exposure to aerosolized droplets or hand-eye contact”. Face shields should only be one part of any infection control effort, along with social distancing and hand-washing.
