Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => COVID-19 => Topic started by: Adam Murphy on 09/06/2020 16:56:43
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We've gotten this question from a listener:
"Apologies if this is a silly question. I imagine that wearing full facial PPE on a covid ward would be quite hot. I was wondering, if a medic contracted coronavirus unknowingly and continued working under full facial PPE, would their intake of breath be warmer into the lungs than normal, and if so could this possibly speed up the incubation of the virus in the respiratory system and intensify the infection?"
Any thoughts?
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One of the ways your body often deals with viruses (and other pathogens) is by increasing core body temperature, as part of the inflammation response. This makes it just a little harder for the virus to take over your cells.
Increasing the temperature of the air does not directly increase your core body temperature. What it does do is to make you sweat more. And take the PPE off more often.
The main risk for staff in a COVID ward is that they have much greater exposure to virus in the air and on surfaces, so any leaks or lapses in PPE is likely to result in infection of the staff. A greater level of virus exposure is likely to result in a faster onset of disease.
Perhaps to make PPE more practical, they could wind the airconditioning down by a degree or two, and issue the patients with an extra blanket?
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Lung tissue is pretty close to 37C.
I doubt that PPE makes much difference.