Applying Bubble and Seal Measure to control COVID-19 Spread in Nopparat Rajathanee Hospital

Abstract

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) originated at Wuhan city, Hubei province, China, on December 30^th, 2019. Since then, it continued spreading worldwide and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11^th, 2020. In Thailand, there was an increasing number of patients who were getting infected with COVID-19. Three COVID-19 cases were reported at the in-patient departments (IPDs) of Nopparat Rajathanee Hospital.  The hospital has a strategy to protect medical personnel from COVID-19 infection by applying an outbreak investigation which includes 10 steps to assess the risk levels among medical teams and implement Bubble and Seal measure. After applying risk assessments, there were 101 medical staffs who were counted as high-risk cases: 58.4% are nurses, 14.9% are nurse assistants, 11.9% are doctors, 7.9% are patient assistants, 5.9% are cleaning staff, and 1% are pharmacists. With Bubble and Seal strategy, all high-risk medical personnel were quarantined according to the policy. After that, there were no increasing of infected medical personnel and cases in IPDs. It proves that Bubble and Seal policy is suitable model for hospitals because it protects medical personnel from COVID-19 infection and high-risk medical teams are still able to perform medical services. A quarantine based on Bubble and Seal strategy is the most proper method due to detecting low infection rate and reducing the problem of inadequate medical staff. Therefore, Nopparat Rajathanee Hospital have never stopped to provide any medical service to the public.