Worldwide, health care workers (HCWs), the front-line defense force against COVID-19, have been infected with and died from this disease. Occupational health care providers in the United States (U.S.) are currently addressing emergency protocols for protecting HCWs from COVID-19. But, there are many unanswered questions related to protecting HCWs including the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), screening, return to work, cleaning surfaces and equipment, etc. While these issues are being addressed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Taiwan and Italy are ahead of the U.S. in managing the outbreak and have experienced different levels of success. In this webinar, two experienced occupational and environmental medicine professors from each country will discuss how the protection of HCWs has progressed in their country, the number of HCWs infected, and what has worked and not worked in protecting HCWs from COVID-19. The brief presentations will be followed by live, moderated Q&A.
Moderator:
Robert Harrison, MD, FACOEM, Clinical Professor, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Speakers:
Y Leon Guo, MD, PhD, MPH, Distinguished Professor, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Medicine and NTU Hospital, Adjunct Professor, Graduate Institute of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health, Taipei, Taiwan
Francesco S. Violante, MD, PhD, Professor of Occupational Medicine and Director, Occupational Health Unit University of Bologna and Sant'Orsola Malpighi Hospital, Bologna, Italy