Exploring the Impact of Nasal Povidone Iodine for Prevention of Intraoperative Spread of SARS-CoV-2 Nucleic Acid Particles and Assessment of Infectivity of Transmitted Particles

Primary Objectives:

The primary aim is to test whether preoperative asepsis versus no preoperative asepsis reduces intraoperative SARS-CoV-2 transmission among patients acutely infected with SARS-CoV-2 (within 10 days of surgery).

Primary Endpoints:

Proximal and distal contamination with SARS-CoV-2 via nucleic acid detection.

Each patient will undergo induction of anesthesia and stabilization for the planned procedure. Approximately 50% of patients will have received 3M 5% povidone iodine 2 times prior to incision (each nares treated 2 times, 4 swabs, a total of 1 vial per patient) with the first time being before anesthesia administration and the second after anesthesia administration or usual care. Then, the investigators will sample locations for which the investigators detected SARS-CoV-2 transmission during the pilot: anesthesia work area reservoirs (anesthesia attending and assistant hands, patient nasopharynx, axilla and groin, and the anesthesia machine vaporizer at case end and at case start, and the patient intravenous stopcock at case end) and the operating room environment (anesthesia cart handles, anesthesia provider mouse, top of anesthesia cart, anesthesia suction cannister, circulating nurse mouse, walls at 6 feet, walls at the base of the floor, and air intake registers). A subset of all samples except patient nasopharynx, axilla, and groin at case beginning will be combined and processed together. Subsets of patient nasopharynx, axilla, and groin samples at case beginning will be combined and processed together. All samples will be stored separately. All samples will be collected before cleaning, transported to the laboratory, and analyzed using real-time PCR for viral detection. Samples will be saved for analysis of viral infectivity and for potential evaluation of each individual sample.