Raddur Samaddar, Team Bioxone & Aashiya Sarkar, Amity University Kolkata
COVID-19 has shaken and re-awaken the entire scientific community at once. Never before an entire working community came together to find a single solution involving myriad approaches. In some ways, the coronavirus response made the approach of the Medical and Research community truly ‘International’. Researchers of the domain realised the importance of global collaborative studying to investigate the mysteries related to this very virus as the ‘emergency response’, regardless of their professional academic progress. The silver lining here is that coronavirus led to the unification of the entire community like never before.
Today, there seems to be a little window of choice for all medical researchers but to study the basics of the virus, because most research domains have been practically overshadowed with COVID-19 studies. Thus, even after the reopening of labs, getting back to the free flow will require a bit of time and patience for everyone. Due to the lack of funding in the current scenario, most of the research works has been shifted to an in-silico approach. This not only hampered the work-flow but also took a toll on the researchers’ mental faculties. It has been confirmed by many leading scientists that re-opening the labs would not be as smooth as it’s rampant closure, also restoring the new-normal might be a multi-year process.
Keeping all the factors in mind, smooth transition for heading back to the lab can be ensured by following some necessary steps. Things like checking for COVID symptoms at the entrance of your institute, sustainable and practical planning to maintain Social Distancing inside the premises, regular sanitisation measures, even putting up interactive posters explaining the Do’s and Don’ts to prevent the COVID spread is necessary. All these measures, along with restricted number of individuals hanging out in the common areas of the institute at a given interval of time might be worthy of consideration.
Personal and Group hygiene in and around the laboratory must also be taken care of, hence, increased number of virtual meetings and encouraging proper hygiene practises through educational webinars, a working shift of the least possible individuals, a thorough review of the laboratory supplies and inventory before restarting the lab is of immense importance. Furthermore, installation of sanitiser dispensing machines and adequate stocking of Personal Protection Equipment and hygiene related consumables is necessary. Updated guidelines to be enforced, which at the same time, has to be monitored for strict compliance in the whole institutional setup, includes the following measures:
a. Guidelines for reporting COVID-19 infection to self or any connections.
b. Social Distancing floor plan.
c. Meeting plans – No of people allowed.
d. Work rotation shift plan.
e. Work time curfew.
f. Visitor policy: delivery people, clients or employee, family and friends allowed in the workplace, Penalty for defaulters.
Research and Development domain is in the very limelight of public scrutiny due to the pandemic. Thus, pushing work efficiency to limits should be the primary concern henceforth. Remedies like working in smaller shifts, organising lab progress ahead of time, using fresh perspective and working smarter than harder might yield better results. After months of this standstill, the enthusiasm of returning to their fields of expertise would not fall short and would ease the path of subsequent re-initiation with clearer realisations.
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