Sanitary, Hygienic and Organizational Criteria for Reducing the Risk of COVID-19

Abstract

Novel coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) was identified in December 2019 in the People’s Republic of China, and it started emerging as an international healthcare emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic might represent the tip of the iceberg, and it is the responsibility of all public healthcare authorities and experts to develop an adequate response using the right protocols and instruments to ensure public safety. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we proposed a set of approaches to prevent the risk of COVID-19: risk assessment criteria, a preventive action plan, an occupational classification system, and sanitary-hygienic principles. All these approaches are beneficial in developing policies and decisions for improving the performance and the outcomes of national and global public health authorities. The risk measurement scale (high risk, medium risk, and low risk) can be used to measure the risk magnitude of contracting coronavirus infection, and to classify occupations according to the coronavirus infectious risk. Furthermore, an essential strategy for reducing the coronavirus risk is introducing sanitary-hygienic principles (time protection, distance protection, and impact scale protection) and the preventive action plan (reconsidering architectural standards, designing and building modular hospitals and modular equipment, and preparing a professional workforce).