by Dr. Carl Luckhoff, Acting Director of Emergency at Alfred Health
Vaccines have provided hope for a return to normalcy, however, in a post-COVID-19 world, the apparatus of infectious disease prevention must be retained.
Although COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious illness and death, the emergence of different strains will continue to pose challenges.
The effectiveness of vaccines towards future strains is unknown, and with international travel re-opening, more challenges will likely arise.
Screening measures are and will remain imperative.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now commonplace to be screened upon entry to a variety of physical environments, workplaces being increasingly included in this list.
Rudimentary tools rely on users disclosing their symptoms alongside any travel to exposure zones and providing details to aid contact-tracing efforts.
Measures that rely on health data often focus on temperature screening alone, without considering parameters such as oxygen saturation and heart rate.