Tag: COVID-19

Overview

• Leon Reingold

Why every organization has a role

Public health authorities, medical facilities, and healthcare professionals all over the world are stretched to their limits to contain the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. But it isn’t just the healthcare sector that alone can stop the spread of COVID-19. Businesses, non-profits, media houses, and other organizations also need to rise to the occasion.

Organizations need to plan and implement various workplace controls to contain the pandemic — if COVID-19 has not arrived in the communities where they have their offices, factories, etc., or when they prepare for the eventual return of employees to the workplace.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), U.S. Department of Labor, recommends the use of a framework based on the ‘hierarchy of controls’ to determine the most effective ways of controlling workplace hazards. The fundamental approach is to systematically eliminate a hazard from the workplace instead of relying on employees to reduce their exposure.

Recent reports suggest that COVID-19 appears to be most contagious 1–2 days before symptoms appear, before people even know they are infected. Given the highly contagious nature of the virus, it isn’t possible to completely stop the spread in the workplace or in a community — but organizations can implement control measures that are known to be effective.

Engineering Controls

Engineering controls help reduce exposure to workplace hazards in a cost-effective manner. In this case, employers need not rely upon worker behavior to ensure positive outcomes. In the case of COVID-19, you don’t just have to focus on isolating workers from hazardous areas; you need to think of ways to isolate workers from each other. A selection of engineering controls employers can implement:

• Increase ventilation rates in the workplace, be it a corporate office or a manufacturing plant.
• Investigate all air filters for their efficiency; if necessary, upgrade air filters at the earliest.
• Install physical barriers such as transparent plastic sneeze guards over cubicles and in front of desks, at all locations where workers and customers are likely to come face to face.
• Separate employees into discrete areas in the workplace, such as cubicles or offices.
• Remove or make unavailable community amenities such as break rooms, sitting areas, lunch halls, coffee stations, and snack plates until we all move past the pandemic.
• Keep customers far apart from each other and from your workers; if possible, do not allow customers inside the office. If customers must enter, limit their proximity to each other and to workers — especially receptionists and customer relationship managers.

If possible, set up a drive-through window for handling customers. This will help minimize contact with asymptomatic people who may be carrying the active virus.

Administrative Controls

Administrative controls are alterations in work procedures to minimize exposure to a hazard. They are the most practical form of COVID-19 prevention for most facilities, though employees or their supervisors need to act in a certain manner for them to be effective. Some examples:

• Ask all sick employees to stay at home, whether they exhibit COVID-19 symptoms or not, and encourage employees to inform their supervisor if they have sick family members at home.
• If employees show symptoms such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath on arrival or during the day, promptly separate them from others and send them home.
• Avoid face-to-face meetings; conduct virtual meetings to minimize contact among employees, vendors, and clients. Prevent gatherings even when workers are physically present.
• Reduce the total number of workers in a facility at a given time — for instance, with different shifts or alternate workdays.
• Prepare an emergency communication and response plan; senior managers or HR leadership should pass on authentic information (from sources such as the CDC or WHO) and address concerns.
• Educate employees through awareness campaigns on how to protect themselves at work and when traveling to work.
• Train any workers who need Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) on how to put it on and take it off, with material suited to their literacy level.
• Disinfect frequently touched surfaces — desks, door handles, elevator buttons, handrails, light switches, counters — with an alcohol-based disinfectant; the virus may survive on inorganic surfaces for three days.
• Institute compulsory hand-washing times (for example, soap and water for at least 20 seconds, once every 30 minutes), and provide hand sanitizers with 60% ethyl alcohol or higher.

Travel Controls

Employees and contractors should seriously consider national and regional travel advice before business trips to other states or countries, and business travel to high-risk cities, states, and countries should be restricted.

If an employee has recently traveled to or from a high-risk zone, offer them a mask to commute safely home and ask them to work from home or take leave for at least four weeks. Ask employees to contact the local public health department with details of recent travel to affected countries and any symptoms; if necessary, direct them to a designated assessment facility using rapid COVID-19 detection kits.

Elimination Controls

Elimination is the best way to stop COVID-19 spread, but it is also the most challenging. Once the virus has entered an environment such as a building, you cannot just remove it permanently or conclusively, and you can never be sure it will not enter again.

Therefore, if there has been an outbreak in the community in an area where you operate, the best way to eliminate your workforce’s exposure is to temporarily close your business. This way, you can be sure your employees won’t transmit the virus to each other.

Substitution Controls

Substitution controls work by replacing a hazard with something less risky to achieve the same outcome. Organizations that cannot afford to remain closed for an indefinite period can opt for substitution — replacing the workplace with another, safer, more isolated environment.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, an organization can have all or most of its employees work from home. The possibility of workplace transmission is eliminated if there’s no shared environment.