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. 2020 May 1;212(10):443–446.e1. doi: 10.5694/mja2.50602
Settings Interventions
Workplace
  • No handshaking policy

  • Promote cough and sneeze etiquette, but focus is on excluding ill staff

  • Videoconferencing as default for meetings

  • Defer large meetings

  • Signage for all offices/meeting rooms advising of maximum occupancy based on 4 m2 per person and 2 m distancing

  • Enforced sanitisation of hands at entrance

  • Regular hand sanitation schedule reminders via email

  • Avoid gathering in lunch and break rooms

  • Gamifying hygiene rules, for example, to discourage touching face

  • Ill* people should stay at home and ill workers immediately isolated

  • Hold necessary meetings outside in open air if possible

  • Staff with ill household contacts should stay at home

  • Disinfect high touch surfaces regularly and between users

  • Work from home where possible and consider staggering of staff

  • Consider opening windows and adjusting air conditioning to increase air flow and maintain warmer more humid environments

  • Limit food handling and sharing of food in the workplace

  • Assess staff business travel risks§

  • Enhance hygiene and screening for illness among food preparation (canteen) staff and their close contacts

  • Analyse the root cause of crowding events on site and prevent through rescheduling, staggering or cancelling

  • Mark floor areas to indicate 2 m distancing points in areas where staff spontaneously gather to prompt distancing

  • Minimise the number of employees in a work vehicle at any one time

School
  • Supervised sanitisation of hands at entrance and at regular intervals

  • Defer activities that lead to mixing between classes and years

  • Promote cough and sneeze etiquette, but focus on excluding ill persons

  • Strict stay at home policy if ill

  • Gamifying hygiene rules, for example, to discourage touching face

  • Regular handwashing schedule

  • Disinfect high touch surfaces regularly and between users

  • Outdoor lessons where possible

  • Consider opening windows and adjusting air conditioning

  • Enhance hygiene and screening for illness among food preparation (canteen) staff and their close contacts

  • Review after‐school care arrangements that lead to mixing of children from multiple classes and ages

Commercial, entertainment and transport
  • Sanitisation of hands at building entrance encouraged

  • Tap and pay preferred to limit handling of money

  • Disinfect high touch surfaces regularly

  • Avoid crowding through booking and scheduling, online pre‐purchasing, limiting attendance numbers

  • Enhance hygiene and screening for illness among food preparation staff and their close contacts

  • Enhance airflow and adjust air conditioning to increase air flow and maintain warmer more humid environments

  • Public transport workers, taxi and ride share drivers — vehicle windows opened where possible, increased air flow, high touch surfaces disinfected

Household
All households
  • Enhanced hand sanitisation

  • Gamifying hygiene rules, for example, to discourage touching face

  • Disinfect high touch surfaces regularly

  • “Welcome if you are well” signs on front door

  • Increase ventilation rates in the home by opening windows or adjusting air conditioning

  • Promote cough and sneeze etiquette

Households with ill members
  • Measures listed above

  • Confirmed cases of COVID‐19 should be isolated away from susceptible household members if there are not completely separate bedroom, bathroom and kitchen facilities

  • If care must be provided at home, ill household members are given their own room and only one person cares for them

  • The door to the ill person's room is kept closed10

  • Wearing simple surgical or dust masks by both infected persons and other family members caring for the patient if needing to be in the same room

  • Consider extra protection or alternative accommodation for household members aged over 65 years or with underlying illness

COVID‐19 = coronavirus disease 2019.

*

 Ill person refers to someone with symptoms of respiratory illness or fever, who is not yet under investigation for COVID‐19 but could be an unrecognised case.

This could be costly unless used judiciously while awaiting exclusion of COVID‐19 in the suspected case and should be introduced based on likelihood of local transmission.

Evidence that low temperature and low humidity in air‐conditioned environments may enhance the survival of coronaviruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).11

§

When international travel restrictions are lifted, sites such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention travel risk assessment site may be useful (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/map-and-travel-notices.html).