Study shows that aerosol box used to protect healthcare workers during COVID intubation increases, rather than decreases, exposure to airborne particles.

A new study shows that aerosol boxes that have been manufactured and used in hospitals in the UK and around the world in order to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 can actually increase exposure to airborne particles that carry the virus, and thus casts doubt on their usefulness.

The authors – who include Drs Peter Chan, Joanna Simpson and colleagues, Intensive Care and Anaesthesia Specialists at Eastern Health, Melbourne, VIC, Australia – say that “the consequences of promotion of such untested devices include either a false sense of security using these devices, or paradoxical increase in healthcare workers exposure to COVID-19”.

The study is published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists).

The study was approved by the Hospital Research and Ethics Committee (HREC LRR20/040).

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