Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has created enormous global demand for personal protective equipment (PPE). Face shields are an important component of PPE for front-line workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing protection of the face from splashes and sprays of virus-containing fluids. Existing face shield designs and manufacturing procedures may not allow for production and distribution of face shields in sufficient volume to meet global demand, particularly in Low and Middle-Income countries. This paper presents a simple, fast, and cost-effective curved-crease origami technique for transforming flat sheets of flexible plastic material into face shields for infection control. It is further shown that the design could be produced using a variety of manufacturing methods, ranging from manual techniques to high-volume die-cutting and creasing. This demonstrates the potential for the design to be applied in a variety of contexts depending on available materials, manufacturing capabilities and labour. An easily implemented and flexible physical-digital parametric design methodology for rapidly exploring and refining variations on the design is presented, potentially allowing others to adapt the design to accommodate a wide range of ergonomic and protection requirements.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented global demand for large quantities of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
The face shield design presented in this paper was tested to the British Standards Institute’s PPE Technical Specification 2020/403 for Healthcare Professionals during the COVID-19 Pandemic, which cites performance requirements outlined in EN 166, listed below:
Due to the severe shortages of PPE experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, revised recommendations have been made by a number of public health bodies concerning the use of PPE
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented global demand for large quantities of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Face shields have been identified as an important component of PPE for frontline healthcare workers. They are classed as “adjunctive PPE”, intended to be worn in addition to respiratory protection to provide additional protection of the facial area from splashes and sprays of bodily fluids from infected patients, to the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, and mouth [1, 2]. The funding that supported this work is listed in the acknowledgements
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