healthy soch
With input from Dr Monica Vasudev
India
healthysoch
New Delhi, September 21, 2020 :
Round Table Expert Zoom Meeting on “Lateral thinking in Covid era” : 19th September, 2020 :
11am-12pm
Participants
Dr KK Aggarwal
Dr Ashok Gupta
Dr Jayakrishnan Alapet
Dr JA Jayalal
Dr Alexander Thomas
Dr DR Rai
Dr Anita Chakravarti
Dr Atul Pandya
Prof Bejon Misra
Dr Anil Kumar
Dr KK Kalra
Mrs Upasana Arora
Ms Ira Gupta
Dr S Sharma
Key points from the discussion
- Lateral thinking is the only way to find solutions in situations where problems are not well defined. Some examples of lateral thinking in the current Covid-19 pandemic are conversion of hotels/rail coaches/stadiums into makeshift hospitals.
- IPL has created a bio-bubble where all players and persons associated with the tournament are tested before they enter the bio-bubble. After a quarantine period of 14 days, they are taken to their hotels and can access the grounds. They are not allowed to interact with anyone outside this bio-secure environment.
- Could a similar bio-secure environment be created for elective surgeries? A hotel could be taken over by a hospital where the patient stays in quarantine, is tested on Days 1 and 7 and taken to the hospital for the surgery on Day 8. After the surgery, the patient is shifted to another place and quarantined for 7 days, tested and if the result is negative, then the patient is discharged.
- Should doctors wear shirt/trousers and white coat made of non-woven water-resistant PPE material, which is washable and re-usable in their clinics/OPD practice? 30 gsm laminated fabric can be used for this purpose.
- Pre- and post-Covid test counselling should be done.
- Steroids and anticoagulants are two major breakthroughs in the management of Covid-19; these can be administered to all high risk cases on Day 1 of the illness, instead of waiting for Day 3 to give them.
- Chest x-ray can be used as a cost-effective screening test.
- The SARS-CoV-2 virus is mutating at the rate of two per month. The original Wuhan virus is no longer circulating now.
- The Oxford vaccine is a hybrid of chimp Adenovirus to which spike protein of Covid-19 virus has been added.
- Live attenuated vaccines are only for immunocompetent individuals.
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