CFNU research summary on COVID-19

Why does the CFNU recommend the precautionary principle, and what is it?

We are learning more and more about COVID-19 each day, and many of the assumptions we made about COVID-19 just a few months ago have been proven wrong.

The U.S. CDC guidance now recognizes that COVID-19 may be spread at close range through respiratory droplets “when they are inhaled”, and that sometimes airborne transmission (which is the way measles, tuberculosis and chickenpox have spread) long-range transmission can occur under certain conditions.

Guidance in Canada and the U.S. has also changed in favour of the public wearing homemade masks as we have discovered that asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission account for a significant percentage of the spread of this novel coronavirus.

In a nutshell, the precautionary principle, as applied to a novel, highly transmissable, virus such as this coronavirus, with a significant public health impact, requires governments and employers to begin with the highest level of protection, not the lowest, for health care workers, and then reduce the level of protection as the science emerges to justify this measure.

Therefore, Canada must change its guidance for health care professionals to recognize that the virus is being spread both through the inhalation of aerosolized particles at close range (less than 6 feet) and through long-range airborne transmission.

CFNU research summary on COVID-19 – Updated November 23, 2020