On April 15, 2020, David Sparkman of EHS Today, wrote about new guidance from the CDC regarding COVID-19.
I have abstracted it here for those reading this newsletter since you may have missed it.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently offered guidance for people returning to work who have been through the COVID-19 illness. The CDC had recommended that people self-isolate for 14 days after recovering from COVID-19. The CDC has now created two, more flexible standards for people returning to work after recovering from COVID-19. According to the CDC these recommendations will prevent most incidents of secondary spread of the virus.
Several requirements are still in effect:
- If an employee arrives at work showing COVID-19 symptoms, that
person needs to be separated from other employees and sent home. - If an employee becomes sick during the day, that person needs to be separated and sent home.
First, under the new guidance, when someone returns to work after the COVID-19 home isolation, the employer needs to:
- be sure that at least three days (72 hours) have passed since their recovery, meaning they have not run a fever without the use of fever-reducing medications,
- respiratory symptoms such as coughing and shortness of breath have improved,
- and at least seven days have passed since symptoms first symptoms first appeared.
OR
Second, if the employee is tested to determine if they are still contagious, they can also leave home after these three conditions have been met:
- The employee no longer has a fever without the use of fever reducing medication.
- Symptoms like coughing and shortness of breath have improved.
- The employee has received two negative tests in a row, 24 hours apart, when the patient’s doctor is following the CDC guidelines.
In all cases, the healthcare provider and local health department should be consulted.
If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, the employer needs to inform other employees of the possible exposure and keep track of whom they have talked with for disease tracking purposes by health officials.
Please pay very careful attention to and help employees who are over 60 and/or have some preexisting condition like a heart problem or diabetes since they are much more vulnerable to this highly contagious virus. About 85% of those who go into hospital are over 65 and about half of them die.
This pandemic has created a lot of change and instability in our society. The FDA and the CDC have changed or suspended many rules and regulations in order to attack the pandemic and save lives. It is a period of high energy and creativity as people everywhere are coming up with ways to help people. Industries have shifted to making PPE-like face masks. The foodservice industry has shifted to take out and delivery. This creativity and positive energy is gratifying.
Like all flus, we need to take it seriously and take appropriate steps to protect ourselves and our families. I have read a lot about what employers should do to protect their employees, which makes sense, but it sounds as if they are running a kindergarten class. OSHA has declared the flu as a recognized workplace hazard, so employers do have a responsibility to do what they can to protect the people, but there is a lot we can do for ourselves.
Artificial intelligence and robots, block chains and bitcoins, the opioid epidemic, political strife, and workplace violence, international worries and potential conflicts are some of the challenges facing all of us. There is a critical need for people, in all walks of life, to come together to openly and honestly talk about our challenges, share our thinking and learn together. We do not have to be blindly swept along. We can make decisions and do the things that we need to do to help to make the world a better place.
When I talk about safety. my thinking goes well beyond the traditional safety numbers, training and procedures. It includes ideas about respect and how everyone has agreed to work together. It includes ideas about personal responsibility, integrity and dedication to helping everyone improve. It includes openness, honesty and sharing information abundantly. It includes ideas about the deeper, often hidden patterns of behavior which have a profound impact on the work environment and drive much of the behavior. It includes the fact that the managers and leaders have the largest impact on their organization’s performance. It includes the understanding that managers focus on reliability, stability, predictability and control as they try to maintain the status quo and that leaders focus on the people, change and the future sharing information abundantly, treating people with respect and helping people find meaning in their work. Both good leaders and managers are needed.
This begins with the leaders deciding to create a culture where it is okay and encouraged that people genuinely talk together, listen, help each other, look out for each other and learn together. This is a culture that helps people to be the best they can be and for the organization to get a lot more profitable. It all begins with all of us treating each other with respect.
This is the sort of culture that Eric Hollnagel is talking about in his Safety II work, which is intended to move the organization beyond the traditional top-down safety management. (I’ve written about Safety II in previous articles – it is all good!)
There have been five fatalities since the project began. All five of the fatalities have been “struck-by” incidents. The most recent occurred about October 1st, when a beam slipped off a piece of equipment and struck a worker on the head. One person was hit by a dump truck. Another died when he was hit by a piece of steel equipment. The fourth person died when a rebar cage fell on him, and the fifth person was killed when he was hit in the head by a pipe.
For example, the workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform received good recognition for outstanding occupational safety performance (the slips, trips and falls sorts of incidents) just a day or two before the explosion on April 20, 2010, that killed 11 people and injured 17 others. The pressures from top management to get into production led to failures of their process safety management (PSM) systems and processes. Communications were limited because management did not want to hear of more problems; they were driving the production schedule. The fine occupational safety performance masked the PSM deficiencies which are more subtle and invisible to upper managers, unless they are keenly aware of the needs for excellent PSM.
Now we have another example with the mess at Boeing and the 737 Max crashes. Top management was feeling the pressures for market share from Airbus and putting terrific pressures on cost reduction and faster production.
There seems to be an interesting disconnect here. OSHA does focus on falls, but what about roadway deaths and homicides? These are serious workplace problems as well. What about the whole problem of workplace violence that begins with the lack of respect (bullying, harassment), and that can lead to serious business problems like poor productivity, high absenteeism, fighting, injuries, murder, and suicide?
This is quite attainable with authentic, courageous leaders who take a stand that this is the sort of place they want to lead. The knowledge and technology are available and broadly known by lots of people so I want to share my own experiences.
This all began with my determination to work on improving respect, civility and safety. As I built credibility and trust with everyone, people began to make improvements in many other areas. Everything got better.
