Skin and respiratory ill-health attributed to occupational face mask use.

BACKGROUND: Face mask use in the workplace has become widespread since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and has been anecdotally linked to adverse health consequences. AIMS: To examine reports of adverse health consequences of occupational face mask use received by The Health and Occupation Research (THOR) network before and after the pandemic onset. METHODS: THOR databases were searched to identify all cases of ill-health attributed to 'face mask' or similar suspected causative agent between 1 January 2010 and 30 June 2021. RESULTS: Thirty two cases were identified in total, 18 reported by occupational physicians and 14 by dermatologists. Seventy-five per cent of cases were reported after the pandemic onset and 91% cases were in the health and social care sector. 25 of the 35 (71%) diagnoses were dermatological, the most frequent diagnoses being contact dermatitis (14 cases) and folliculitis/acne (6 cases). Of the seven respiratory diagnoses, four were exacerbation of pre-existing asthma. CONCLUSIONS: There is evidence of an abrupt increase in reports of predominantly dermatological ill-health attributed to occupational face mask use since the start of the pandemic. Respiratory presentations have also occurred.

Deployment of the 1st Area Medical Laboratory to South Korea in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

In December 2019, an outbreak of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2, occurred in Wuhan city, Hubei province, China.1 South Korea saw its first confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) case on January 20, 2020, when an infected woman from Wuhan, China arrived in S. Korea via Incheon International Airport.1 By mid-February, SARS-CoV-2 was rapidly spreading in the southern city of Daegu, S. Korea in proximity to three US Forces Korea (USFK) military installations. COVID-19 cases continued to increase during the following weeks, reaching a peak of nearly 1,000 confirmed cases per day by the end of February. As cases surged dramatically, over 28,000 USFK service members, family members, and Department of Defense (DoD) employees were at a risk of exposure to COVID-19. On February 24, clinicians diagnosed the first confirmed case in the USFK population, a 61 year-old widow of a retired service member. This individual, who experienced a mild illness, was the spouse of a retired US military veteran living in S. Korea. The retiree and his spouse both had access to military posts in S. Korea, and the spouse tested positive after she had been on one of the military bases in Area IV (Figure 1). The following day, USFK reported its first confirmed case in a service member, which was the triggering event for the 1st Area Medical Laboratory (AML) to deploy to S. Korea.