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. 2020 Oct 10:738:140347.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140347. Epub 2020 Jun 18.

Heat warning and public and workers' health at the time of COVID-19 pandemic

Marco Morabito  1 , Alessandro Messeri  2 , Alfonso Crisci  3 , Lorenza Pratali  4 , Michela Bonafede  5 , Alessandro Marinaccio  5 ; WORKLIMATE Collaborative Group
Affiliations

Heat warning and public and workers' health at the time of COVID-19 pandemic

Marco Morabito et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

The humanity is currently facing the COVID-19 pandemic challenge, the largest global health emergency after the Second World War. During summer months, many countries in the northern hemisphere will also have to counteract an imminent seasonal phenomenon, the management of extreme heat events. The novelty this year concerns that the world population will have to deal with a new situation that foresees the application of specific measures, including adjunctive personal protective equipment (i.e. facemasks and gloves), in order to reduce the potential transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These measures should help to decrease the risk of the infection transmission but will also represent an aggravating factor to counteract the heat effects on the population health both at occupational and environmental level. The use of a specific heat health warning system with personalized information based on individual, behavioural and environmental characteristics represents a necessary strategy to help a fast adaptation of the population at a time where the priority is to live avoiding SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Keywords: Facemask; Gloves; Heat-health warning system; Heat-stress; Personal protective equipment; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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