Table 7 Summary of the Rapid Qualitative Assessment on COVID-19 Mitigation: Perspectives from Food Service Workers and COVID-19 Mitigation Professionals
Scenario | Theme | Examples |
|---|---|---|
Food Service Workers | ||
Challenges if you or someone in your home were to test positive for COVID-19 | Financial | “Navigate the financial ramifications of missing work as a service industry professional if infected” |
Household safety | “Keeping my family from becoming sick” “Not having enough non-shared rooms to properly distance at home” | |
Work impact | “Employers don’t really care anymore about who’s been exposed or about making people work while they’re sick.” | |
Exposure | “Ensuring that I don’t become infected and transmit the illness to others at work.” | |
Mental health | “Dealing with anxiety to keep my child safe from catching COVID” | |
Tips and challenges about COVID-19 mitigation strategies | Guidelines | Challenges: “Hard to keep up with constantly changing guidelines from the CDC, state, city” |
Precautions | Tips: “Maintaining social distancing and reintegrating with mask use seems really beneficial even if someone tests positive.” | |
Resources | Challenges: “Running out of covid tests at the testing sites was a constant pain.” Tips: “It would be great if air purifiers were used in public spaces” | |
Household safety | Challenges: “It is hard to stay distant from your child who has covid. You want to protect yourself but you also don’t want your loved one to feel alone.” | |
Mental health | Challenges: “The constant arguments with guests in order to get them to comply with policy was a constant stress adding factor.” | |
Tips and challenges about COVID-19 precaution and decision-making | Work issues | Challenges: “Last year my coworkers thanked me when I still masked after being exposed or when I was feeling sick. Now I’ve had coworkers mock me for doing so.” Challenges: “People at work catch COVID but precautions are not taken seriously to avoid spread.” |
Social interaction | Challenges: “It always throws me for a loop when I’m casually discussing what I consider to be basic human decency and someone responds with annoyance. It’s baffling and discouraging.” | |
Precautions | Challenges: “Not knowing the views of other people regarding COVID and the precautions that they are taking. It’s intimidating.” Challenges: “I feel as though people have truly become laxed in how they respond to covid in the workplace and may not take the precautions we did two years ago.” | |
COVID-19 Mitigation Professionals | ||
In-home mitigation | Masks | Wear N95 respirators (masks) or P100/N100 elastomerics if finances permit. |
Filtration | Use HEPA filters or do-it-yourself (DIY) air cleaners called Corsi-Rosenthal boxes or SAFE air purifiers. | |
Ventilation | Open windows. Use fans to blow clean air in. Use fans to blow infected air out of isolation rooms. | |
Isolation | Create an isolation room at home. Family members testing negative stay outside as much as possible. The person who is ill should eat outside if possible. | |
Testing and Treatment | Testing | Get PCR testing if possible. Use at-home rapid-antigen tests too, or at-home loop-mediated amplification (LAMP) tests if finances permit. |
Treatment | Seek Paxlovid, monoclonal antibody treatment, or other early treatments, as guidelines recommend. | |
Community Involvement | Work issues | Take paid sick leave or paid time off, to the extent allowed. Look for possible remote work options to make up for financial gaps. |
Social support | Reach out to family and friends to watch children while parents work, if needed. Reach out to local community resources for help. | |