Develop, Implement, and Communicate about Workplace Flexibilities and Protections
■ Actively encourage sick employees to stay home.
■ Ensure that sick leave policies are flexible and consistent with public health guidance and that employees are aware of these policies.
■ Talk with companies that provide your business with contract or temporary employees about the importance of sick employees staying home and encourage them to develop non-punitive leave policies.
■ Do not require a healthcare provider’s note for employees who are sick with acute respiratory illness to validate their illness or to return to work, as healthcare provider offices and medical facilities may be extremely busy and not able to provide such documentation in a timely way.
■ Maintain flexible policies that permit employees to stay home to care for a sick family member. Employers should be aware that more employees may need to stay at home to care for sick children or other sick family members than is usual.
■ Recognize that workers with ill family members may need to stay home to care for them.
■ Be aware of workers’ concerns about pay, leave, safety, health, and other issues that may arise during infectious disease outbreaks. Provide adequate, usable, and appropriate training, education, and informational material about business-essential job functions and worker health and safety, including proper hygiene practices and the use of any workplace controls (including PPE). Informed workers who feel safe at work are less likely to be unnecessarily absent.
- Work with insurance companies (e.g., those providing employee health benefits) and state and local
health agencies to provide information to workers and customers about medical care in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak.
Implement Workplace Controls
Occupational safety and health professionals use a framework called the “hierarchy of controls” to select ways of controlling workplace hazards. In other words, the best way to control a hazard is to systematically remove it from the workplace, rather than relying on workers to reduce their exposure.
During a COVID-19 outbreak, when it may not be possible to eliminate the hazard, the most effective protection measures are (listed from most effective to least effective): engineering controls, administrative controls, safe work practices (a type of administrative control), and PPE. There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of control measure when considering the ease of implementation, effectiveness, and cost. In most cases, a combination of control measures will be necessary to protect workers from exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
Engineering Controls
Engineering controls involve isolating employees from work related hazards. In workplaces where they are appropriate, these types of controls reduce exposure to hazards without relying on worker behavior and can be the most cost-effective solution to implement. Engineering controls for SARS-CoV-2 include:
■ Installing high-efficiency air filters.
■ Increasing ventilation rates in the work environment.
■ Installing physical barriers, such as clear plastic sneeze guards.
- Installing a drive-through window for customer service.
■ Specialized negative pressure ventilation in some settings, such as for aerosol generating procedures (e.g., airborne infection isolation rooms in healthcare settings and specialized autopsy suites in mortuary settings).
Administrative Controls
Administrative controls require action by the worker or employer. Typically, administrative controls are changes in work policy or procedures to reduce or minimize exposure to a hazard.
Examples of administrative controls for SARS-CoV-2 include:
■ Encouraging sick workers to stay at home.
■ Minimizing contact among workers, clients, and customers by replacing face-to-face meetings with virtual communications and implementing telework if feasible.
■ Establishing alternating days or extra shifts that reduce the total number of employees in a facility at a given time, allowing them to maintain distance from one another while maintaining a full onsite work week.
■ Discontinuing nonessential travel to locations with ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks
■ Developing emergency communications plans, including a forum for answering workers’ concerns and internet-based communications, if feasible.
■ Providing workers with up-to-date education and training on COVID-19 risk factors and protective behaviors (e.g., cough etiquette and care of PPE).
■ Training workers who need to use protecting clothing and equipment how to put it on, use/wear it, and take it off correctly, including in the context of their current and potential duties. Training material should be easy to understand and available in the appropriate language and literacy level for all workers.
Safe Work Practices
Safe work practices are types of administrative controls that include procedures for safe and proper work used to reduce the duration, frequency, or intensity of exposure to a hazard.
Examples of safe work practices for SARS-CoV-2 include:
■ Providing resources and a work environment that promotes personal hygiene. For example, provide tissues, no-touch trash cans, hand soap, alcohol-based hand rubs containing
at least 60 percent alcohol, disinfectants, and disposable towels for workers to clean their work surfaces.
■ Requiring regular hand washing or using of alcohol-based hand rubs. Workers should always wash hands when they are visibly soiled and after removing any PPE.
■ Post handwashing signs in restrooms.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
While engineering and administrative controls are considered more effective in minimizing exposure to SARS-CoV-2, PPE may also be needed to prevent certain exposures. While correctly using PPE can help prevent some exposures, it should not take the place of other prevention strategies.
Examples of PPE include: gloves, goggles, face shields, face masks, and respiratory protection, when appropriate. During an outbreak of an infectious disease, such as COVID-19, recommendations for PPE specific to occupations or job tasks may change depending on geographic location, updated risk assessments for workers, and information on PPE effectiveness in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Employers should check the OSHA and CDC websites regularly for updates about recommended PPE.
All types of PPE must be:
■ Selected based upon the hazard to the worker.
■ Properly fitted and periodically refitted, as applicable (e.g., respirators).
- Consistently and properly worn when required.
■ Regularly inspected, maintained, and replaced, as necessary.
■ Properly removed, cleaned, and stored or disposed of, as applicable, to avoid contamination of self, others, or the environment.
Employers are obligated to provide their workers with PPE needed to keep them safe while performing their jobs. The types of PPE required during a COVID-19 outbreak will be based on the risk of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 while working and job tasks that may lead to exposure.
Workers, including those who work within 6 feet of patients known to be, or suspected of being, infected with SARS-CoV-2 and those performing aerosol-generating procedures, need to use respirators:
Follow Existing OHSAS/OSHA Standards
Existing OSHA standards may apply to protecting workers from exposure to and infection with SARS-CoV-2.While there is no specific OSHA standard covering SARSCoV-2 exposure, some OSHA requirements may apply to preventing occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
