After months of lockdown restrictions, there has been a growing trend among offices across the United States to allow employees to return to their former workplaces. In response, nearly every office has enforced a strict mask policy to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, a few important questions remain:

Do masks provide enough protection against the spread of the coronavirus in offices?
And if not, what can offices do to protect the health and well-being of its employees?

In this article, we answer these questions and show how Nightlock’s line of sneeze guards is the right choice for offices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Do masks provide enough protection against the spread of

the coronavirus in offices?

There’s simply no replacing the traditional office environment. With remote work falling short of productivity goals, especially during an economic downturn, businesses have been increasingly faced with exposing their staff and the general public to a potentially-dangerous work environment.

To be frank, masks simply aren’t enough protection. It’s been shown from numerous studies conducted by the CDC that masks aren’t enough to completely prevent the transmission of COVID-19.

In fact, masks may actually exacerbate viral transmission for a number of reasons:

Cloth masks can create a damp and warm environment for viruses to fester over the course of several hours of use;
There’s no guarantee that every staff member has cleaned/disinfected properly after each use; and
Noncompliance or carelessness from employees to wear masks properly can render entire offices and their adjoining ventilation systems at risk.

One outbreak of COVID-19 can cause an office to be shut down, making this a very real threat to the health of the staff and the business’ ability to operate optimally. With the next inevitable phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to occur during the winter and spring months, taking further actions beyond masks is possible with

What can offices do to protect the health and well-being of its employees?

As you can see, masks aren’t sufficient exclusively in their own for offices to be protected from viral outbreaks.

There has been little consensus on just how effective masks have been. However, government safety agency OSHA has published general guidelines for workplaces, recommending the installation of sneeze guards in offices.

When combined with adequate disinfection methods, social distancing, and other protocols, sneeze guards from Nightlock are an effective way to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The benefits of using Nightlock’s line of sneeze guards are numerous, including:

Reduced person-to-person transmission, particularly for those working in close quarters,
Better employee performance, overall job retention, and hiring due to a greater overall peace of mind.
Various sizes and forms of sneeze guards are available for cubicles, cash-registers, meeting rooms, and a wide variety of office/light-industrial applications.
Reduction of costly business interruption.
Creates a passive barrier that doesn’t require participation and/or exposure from all staff.
Creates a physical barrier for safely interfacing with the public.
Ease of installation and disassembly, particularly for daily cleaning/disinfecting