Getting back to business as usual, might look a bit different post-pandemic. Whether you have employees who are subject to a quarantine or isolation order, employees who are reluctant to return to work, or you have an employee who tested positive or has related symptoms, you need to respond appropriately to keep your employee population safe, while maintaining productivity. Having a plan in place can help you handle situations if or when they arise. The plan, however, should be flexible, as guidance continues to evolve. No one-size-fits-all plan will work for every organization. Response plans will need to be customized to fit particular situations.
Many employers have gathered a select group of employees to act as COVID-19 response personnel which can include stakeholders from executive, HR, safety, facilities, and IT to name a few. These people will help make policies, procedures, guidance, and lead communication efforts.
You may have had some employees who were working from home, which is a great way to keep the disease out of the workplace. As time goes by, however, you may want to begin bringing employees back to the physical location. Choosing which employees are the first to return should be based on business operations and needs. Since you will likely want to incorporate some physical distance between employee workstations, you might want to make adjustments to the workplace layout to accommodate the distance, or put up effective barriers between employees who are unable to distance.
The determination on which employees you do bring back should not be based on protected classes such as age, nationality, race, disability, or sex.
Before employees come back, ensure the air quality is good. Routine HVAC maintenance is recommended. Although it is never the first line of prevention, consider general ventilation adjustments in your workplace, such as increasing ventilation and increasing the amount of outdoor air used by the system.
During a given situation, employees might be entitled to take leave from work for a variety of reasons, as the leave may be protected by law. While some states have their own employee leave provisions, federal law also has some provisions.
Eligible employees may take up to 12 weeks of FMLA leave in a 12-month period for the following qualifying reasons:
Long COVID can be a disability under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for the known disability of an employee or applicant.
If an employee requests a workplace change because of a medical condition (including long COVID), employers are to talk to the employee in an interactive process, with a focus on identifying an effective, reasonable accommodation. Employers should look at the employee's limitations in relation to the job's essential functions, identify barriers between them, and work to break down or eliminate the barriers.
The law also prohibits discrimination on the basis of a disability.
You must treat COVID-19 as work related if it was contracted in the work environment. An injury or illness is recordable on your OSHA 300 Log if it meets all three of the following conditions:
1. It is work-related according OSHA’s definition in 29 CFR 1904.5;
2. It is new according to OSHA’s definition in 29 CFR 1904.6; and
3. It meets one or more of the general recording criteria.
OSHA says that a case is work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to the resulting condition or significantly aggravated a preexisting injury or illness. Basically, if an injury or illness happened at work, or while the employee was doing work for the employer, the case will be work-related.
OSHA says that if an exposure to the novel coronavirus in the workplace was a “discernible cause,” that led to the employee’s illness. In some cases, it may be easy to make this determination. Health care workers, for example, may be regularly exposed to people carrying the virus. In other cases, you may have an employee exposed to a coworker who tested positive for COVID-19. If the employee later becomes sick with COVID-19, that’s a discernible cause.
In the preamble discussion to Part 1904, OSHA says that when you’re not sure the employee’s injury or illness is work-related, you must evaluate the employee’s work duties and the work environment to decide whether it is more likely than not that events or exposures in the work environment either caused or contributed to the condition. If so, the case is work-related.
OSHA’s Enforcement Guidance for Recording Cases of COVID-19 says that determining work-relatedness will be different for health care and non-health-care employers. For now, non-health-care employers will not have to make a work-relatedness determination unless:
1. There is objective evidence that a COVID-19 case may be work-related, and
2. The evidence was reasonably available to the employer.
Health care, emergency response, and correctional institutions will continue to follow the requirements for determining work-relatedness in Part 1904.
A “new” case, according to OSHA’s definition, is one that has not occurred before or that has occurred before, but the employee had recovered completely before an event or exposure in the workplace caused the signs and symptoms to reappear.
Work-related cases of COVID-19 would be new cases on your Log. But if a sick employee who had been self-treating at home later needed to go to the hospital for medical treatment, or in the worst-case scenario, died, you would need to update your Log with the new information. You would not consider it to be a new case. The general recordkeeping criteria are listed in order of seriousness in §1904.7 and include:
In addition, OSHA says that for it to be recordable, a new case of COVID-19 must be work-related, confirmed by a laboratory test, and meet one or more of the recording criteria. A confirmed case of COVID-19 means an individual with at least one respiratory specimen that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
An employee exposure to the illness in the workplace is not automatically recordable. The exposure must result in signs or symptoms of the disease and be confirmed by a laboratory test. In addition, it must meet one or more of the general recording criteria.
When an employee has been exposed to an illness or a hazard in the workplace, the case is not recordable unless the employee exhibits signs and symptoms of an injury or illness. For cases of COVID-19, the employee must also test positive for the disease. However, once the employee exhibits signs and symptoms, you must begin counting the days away. In a situation where an employer sends the employee home to self-quarantine, the best practice is to begin counting the case on your Log when you send the employee home. That way, if the employee becomes ill with COVID-19, you have an accurate start date on your Log. If the employee does not become ill, you may delete or line out the entry on your Log. Keep in mind that states may handle this differently.
OSHA’s regulations at 29 CFR 1904.39 require all employers, even those who do not keep an injury or illness Log, to report directly to OSHA any work-related fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations, or the loss of an eye.
Reports must be made either in person, by telephone to the nearest OSHA office, or by using an online reporting form on OSHA’s website.
Reports must be made within eight hours of the work-related fatality, or within eight hours of the employer learning about it or learning the fatality was work-related. Reports must be made within 24 hours for work-related hospitalizations, amputations, or the loss of an eye.
If an employee died because of a work-related case of COVID-19, the death must be reported to OSHA within eight hours.
If an employee dies more than 30 days after the workplace exposure to COVID-19, you would not have to report the death to OSHA.
If an employee is formally admitted to the hospital for in-patient care or treatment because of a work-related, diagnosed case of COVID-19, you must report it to OSHA.
If an employee is at the workplace and complains of feeling ill, immediately isolate the employee and send him or her home.
Determine where the employee was in the workplace so that the area can be cleaned and disinfected. This means that all items and surfaces that the employee could have come into contact with need to be addressed. If the ill employee was coughing excessively, that must be taken into consideration as droplets can travel and land on surfaces up to six feet away.
If these items or surfaces have visible dirt on them, they need to be cleaned with soap and water before being disinfected. Frequently touched surfaces and objects, like light switches and doorknobs, will need to be cleaned and then disinfected to further reduce the risk of germs.
When you are cleaning or disinfecting a hard and non-porous material or item like glass, metal, or plastic use an EPA-approved product. You can also use diluted household bleach solutions if appropriate for the surface. Pay special attention to the personal protective equipment that may be needed to safely apply the disinfectant and the manufacturer’s recommendations concerning any additional hazards. Always wear gloves appropriate for the chemicals being used for routine cleaning and disinfecting.
In specific instances, personnel with specialized training and equipment may be required to apply certain disinfectants such as fumigants or fogs.
Examples of frequently touched surfaces and objects that will may need disinfection following possible contamination by the ill employee include:
Working safely requires everyone to move forward together using recommended best practices and maintaining safe daily habits in order to reduce the risk.