Although it has only been 10 days since OSHA delivered a proposed COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing emergency temporary standard (ETS) to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a lot has happened. We have seen bizarre attempts by groups of individuals to try to muck up the OMB review process. The US Department of Labor sent letters to certain states informing them that federal OSHA is considering revoking their approved status to operate their State OSH Plans. And, President Biden’s nominee to Head OSHA, Doug Parker, is scheduled to be confirmed early next week. Here is a summary of what we’ve been seeing and where we are now.
When Will the Vaccination and Testing ETS be Issued?
The stakeholder input process at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is well underway. OMB’s website reflecting the schedule of Executive Order 12866 meetings is normally only updated once per day, making it hard to nail down when OMB intends to conclude its review of the proposed ETS. As of the end of last week, we heard that OMB might conclude its review process as early as last Friday, October 12th, but every day, OMB’s website updated to include more and more stakeholder meetings. As of this morning (Friday, October 22nd), the OMB website updated again, and it did add some new scheduled OIRA EO 12866 stakeholder meetings (now up to 68 meetings), but all of the new meetings have been scheduled to be completed today by 3 PM.
It is beginning to look to us like OMB will have “completed” its review of the ETS by the end of the day today, so at this point, we think OSHA could release the pre-publication package revealing the regulatory text and the preamble of the final ETS, as early as the close of business today.
On September 9th, President Biden announced that he was directing OSHA to issue a new Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that would require many employers to provide paid time for employees to get and recover from getting vaccinated, and more importantly, to implement “soft” vaccine mandates; i.e., require employees either to be fully vaccinated or get weekly COVID-19 testing. This new ETS focused on vaccinations and testing is a central element of the President’s newly unveiled Path Out of the Pandemic – COVID-19 Action Plan, with a central tenet to “vaccinate the unvaccinated.”
We heard from our contacts at OSHA that the agency would move much more quickly to prepare and send this ETS to the White House than it had done with the first COVID-19 ETS this Spring and Summer, and they have done just that. On Tuesday, October 12, 2021, the Department of Labor issued a statement confirming that OSHA delivered to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget what the statement characterized as the “initial text” of the ETS. Here is the relevant except from the DOL statement:
“The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been working expeditiously to develop an emergency temporary standard that covers employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or undergo weekly testing to protect employees from the spread of coronavirus in the workplace. On Tuesday, October 12, as part of the regulatory review process, the agency submitted the initial text of the emergency temporary standard to the Office of Management and Budget.”
We thought the reference to “initial text” was peculiar. Generally, it is a proposed final regulation that OSHA delivers to OMB in the context of an emergency rulemaking, not a working draft. But, the very next day, on Wednesday, October 13, 2021, after hitting the “refresh” button more times through the night than we would like to admit, we saw what we were expecting – a proposed final version of Federal OSHA’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) has been submitted to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) for approval:
As we previously reported, on September 6, 2021, the New York State Commissioner of Health issued a designation determining COVID-19 to be “a highly contagious communicable disease that presents a serious risk of harm to the public health in New York State.” Such designation triggered requirements on employers to activate their airborne infectious disease exposure prevention plans in accordance with the New York Health and Essential Rights Act (“HERO Act”).
The New York State Department of Labor (“NYDOL”) issued the HERO Act Standards and model plan, which set forth the minimum requirements employers must provide to address exposure to airborne infectious diseases in the workplace. As explained in our prior blog post, those requirements include:
employee health screenings;
employee face coverings;
personal protective equipment;
workplace hand hygiene stations and protocols, which includes adequate break times for employees to wash their hands;
cleaning and disinfecting shared equipment and frequently touched surfaces and high-risk areas;
social distancing;
complying with mandatory or precautionary orders of isolation or quarantine issued to employees;
air flow, exhaust ventilation, or other special engineering design requirements;
designation of one or more supervisors with the responsibility to ensure compliance with the prevention plan and any applicable federal, state, or local laws, rules, or guidance on preventing the spread of an airborne infectious disease;
notice to employees; and
verbal review of the infectious disease standard, employer policies, and employee rights under the NY HERO Act.
While we have been mostly focused on the September 9th directive from President Biden to fed OSHA to issue a COVID-19 vaccination / testing emergency temporary standard, that was hardly the only major move the Administration announced on the vaccine-mandate front. This update will focus on federal contractors – companies that provide services to the federal government through direct contracts with federal agencies and through subcontracts in support of federal contracts.
Setting a “hard” vaccine mandate – “Covered Contractor Employees” must be fully vaccinated by December 8, 2021 (and thereafter before starting to work on any federal contract);
Designating a COVID-19 safety coordinator to communicate requirements to employees and non-employees at your “Covered Contractor Workplaces”; and
Ensuring all individuals at a “Covered Contractor Workplace” comply with CDC masking and distancing guidance.
For months now, since January 2021, contractors and subcontractors working in-person on federal property have already been required to provide a self-certification that they were fully vaccinated OR had received a recent negative COVID-19 test. (SeeEO 13991 – “Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing”). The new EO for federal contractors eliminates the “testing-out option” and expands the mandate beyond just federal properties to also cover private workplaces, or really any place at all, where an individual is working in support of a covered federal contract.
Only those unvaccinated employees who are “legally entitled to an accommodation” for medical or religious reasons may continue to be employed to work on federal contracts. There are no exceptions for people who previously were infected and recovered. Anti-body tests are not acceptable to prove vaccination status. Under limited special circumstances involving an “urgent, mission critical need”, a federal agency may allow certain individuals who are not fully vaccinated to continue working for only up to 60 days from beginning the work on a covered contract or in a covered workplace.
Another development of this federal contractor mandate is that employers must review covered employees’ official documentation to verify vaccination status (i.e., the white card or an official record from a health department database), and self-attestation is not an acceptable substitute.
Last Thursday, September 9th, President Biden announced that he is directing OSHA to issue a new Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that would require many employers to provide paid time for employees to get and recover from getting vaccinated and to implement “soft” vaccine mandates; i.e., require employees either to be fully vaccinated or get weekly COVID-19 testing, as well as issuing new Executive Orders requiring federal contractors to implement “hard” vaccine mandates.
While we anticipated OSHA would reconsider the need for a broader COVID-19 ETS applicable beyond just the healthcare sector in light of the impact of the Delta variant, President Biden’s decision to use a new ETS focused on vaccinations and testing as a central element of his newly unveiled Path Out of the Pandemic – COVID-19 Action Plan raises a host of challenges for employers across the country. To help our clients and friends in industry prepare for and navigate this emergency rulemaking, we have prepared an extensive list of Q&As about OSHA’s Emergency Rulemaking for a COVID-19 Vaccine-Mandate ETS. Also, here are links to an article we prepared summarizing OSHA’s new emergency rulemaking, a recording of the webinar about the ETS we conducted last week, and the slides we used.
We understand from our contacts at OSHA that the agency will move much more quickly to prepare and send this ETS to the White House, so it is imperative that the employer community come together now to identify shared concerns and considerations and begin advocating to OSHA and OMB so that this new ETS is one with which industry can reasonably manage. To that end, Conn Maciel Carey LLP is organizing a coalition of employers and trade groups to advocate for the most reasonable fed OSHA COVID-19 emergency rule focused on vaccination and testing possible.
For several reasons, we believe this emergency rulemaking may be the OSHA rulemaking that has the most opportunity for industry influence that we can recall. First, Continue reading →
On September 9th, President Biden revealed a new COVID-19 Action Plan with one of several key goals to “Vaccinate the Unvaccinated.” The most notable aspect of that plan is a directive to federal OSHA to develop a 2nd COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard requiring all but small employers in all industries to implement “soft” vaccine mandates; i.e., require employees to either be fully vaccinated or get weekly testing. The President also directed OSHA to include in this new ETS a requirement that employers provide paid time for employees to get vaccinated and recover from ill effects of the vaccine. Separately, the President issued Executive Orders setting “hard” vaccine mandates for federal contractors and healthcare workers.
The President’s announcement was lean on details, and prompted as many questions as it answered. The attorneys from CMC’s OSHA and Employment Law practices discussed our take on the burning questions raised by this latest development on the COVID-19 front: Continue reading →
Cal/OSHA has just convened an Advisory Committee to consider a proposed permanent Cal/OSHA COVID-19 prevention permanent rule, scheduled to meet on September 23, 2021. Conn Maciel Carey has been invited to serve on the Advisory Committee, on behalf of the California Employers COVID-19 Prevention Coalition – composed of a broad array of California and national employers substantially impacted by Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 standards.
Last Friday, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) posted the attached discussion draft for the proposed permanent rule. If adopted, the permanent rule would expire in 2 years (subject to renewal/amendment) and replace the existing Cal/OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). We expect that upon the permanent rule sunsetting, the Cal/OSHA Standards Board might take up a permanent general infectious disease standard – which would be another battle to be waged. There is a broad consensus among the employer community that a general infectious disease standard is unnecessary and ill advised, in light of the existing Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) and Aerosol Transmissible Diseases standards and the inability to prescribe specific measures to address pandemics that have yet to arise.
As many may recall, the ETS was hurriedly adopted around Thanksgiving last year and then amended in June 2021 following bizarre twists and turns, with the Standards Board reconsidering proposed text and votes faced with concerns the draft amendment was not aligned with CDC guidance and was otherwise unwieldy. Ultimately, the Standards Board formed a subcommittee to consider the future of the ETS that has met regularly since June.
Big picture, the draft permanent rule is largely a significant improvement over the ETS but there are some areas of concern that we hope are addressed through the Advisory Committee process. We have summarized how the draft permanent rule materially departs from the ETS: Continue reading →
We hate that we have to do this again, but alas, as we reported late last week, on Thursday, September 9th, President Biden announced that he is directing OSHA to issue a new Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that would require many employers to provide paid time for employees to get and recover from getting vaccinated and to implement “soft” vaccine mandates; i.e., require employees either to be fully vaccinated or get weekly COVID-19 testing, as well as issuing new Executive Orders requiring federal contractors to implement “hard” vaccine mandates.
While we anticipated OSHA would reconsider the need for a broader COVID-19 ETS applicable beyond just the healthcare sector in light of the impact of the Delta variant, President Biden’s decision to use a new ETS focused on vaccinations and testing as a central element of his newly unveiled Path Out of the Pandemic – COVID-19 Action Plan raises a host of challenges for employers across the country. We understand from our contacts at OSHA that the agency will move much more quickly to prepare and send this ETS to the White House, so it is imperative that the employer community come together now to identify shared concerns and considerations and begin advocating to OSHA and OMB so that this new ETS is one with which industry can reasonably manage.
To that end, Conn Maciel Carey LLP is organizing a fee-based company-anonymous coalition of employers and trade groups to advocate for the most reasonable fed OSHA COVID-19 emergency rule focused on vaccination and testing possible.Continue reading →
On Sept. 9th, Pres. Biden revealed a new COVID-19 Action Plan with one of several key goals to “Vaccinate the Unvaccinated.” The most notable aspect of that plan is a directive to federal OSHA to develop a 2nd COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard requiring all but small employers in all industries to implement “soft” vaccine mandates; i.e., require employees to either be fully vaccinated or get weekly testing. The President also directed OSHA to include in this new ETS a requirement that employers provide paid time for employees to get vaccinated and recover from ill effects of the vaccine. Separately, the President issued Executive Orders setting “hard” vaccine mandates for federal contractors and healthcare workers.
The President’s announcement was lean on details, and prompted as many questions as it answered. Join the attorneys from CMC’s OSHA and Employment Law practices to talk through our take on the burning questions raised by this latest development on the COVID-19 front: Continue reading →
On September 9, 2021, President Biden charged federal OSHA with developing a second emergency temporary standard (ETS) requiring all but small employers in all industries but healthcare to implement “soft” vaccine mandates, i.e., to require employees to either be fully vaccinated or get weekly COVID-19 testing. The President directed OSHA to include in this new ETS a requirement that these employers provide paid time for employees to get vaccinated and recover from the vaccine. The President also issued executive orders mandating federal contractors and healthcare employers implement “hard” vaccine mandates.
The push now for a broader COVID-19 ETS applicable beyond just healthcare is a step for which we have been bracing for a while now. In June, when OSHA issued its COVID-19 ETS that was limited only to the healthcare industry, the vast majority of employers dodged the bullet, but since the explosion of new cases because of the Delta variant, we began to see that bullet more as a boomerang, likely to come back around for the rest of industry. Here are five signals we picked up that OSHA was likely to revisit its decision in June to limit its COVID-19 ETS to only healthcare employers:
The rate of community transmission and COVID-19 deaths around the country has returned to the level we were experiencing in the Spring of this year when OSHA delivered to OMB a proposed ETS that was written to cover all industries. To the extent the decline in cases and deaths was a major factor in OSHA’s decision to limit the ETS to just healthcare, that factor no longer cuts in favor of a healthcare-only rule.
Since issuing the ETS for healthcare, OSHA has been under pressure from national unions and worker advocacy groups to expand the ETS to all industries, both in the form of written comments during the ETS’s post-issuance comment period and a lawsuit filed by AFL-CIO challenging OSHA’s decision to limit the ETS to just healthcare.
There has been a growing tension between the Biden Administration and certain Republican governors, particular DeSantis in Florida and Abbott in Texas, around mask and vaccine mandates. The Biden Administration could resolve that tension by issuing a specific federal OSHA regulation setting requirements for masking and vaccinations, which would likely preempt conflicting state laws.
The White House has changed its tune about strict COVID-19 protocols and vaccine mandates dramatically since the OSHA ETS was issued. The Administration’s decision to limit the ETS to healthcare only was likely at least partially politically-motivated; i.e., a broad ETS was too unpopular due to the massive decline in COVID-19 cases and deaths. However, we have started to see President Biden take politically risky moves around vaccinations; e.g., reinstituting mask recommendations for vaccinated individuals and setting a “soft” mandate for federal workers and contractors and encouraging industry to set similar mandates. If the politics of aggressive COVID-19 requirements influenced OSHA’s decision to issue a narrow rule in June, it appears the Administration has changed its political calculation in the face of the spread of the Delta variant surge.
Those were the main signals we saw that kept us up at night worried OSHA would deliver to OMB a new or amended COVID-19 ETS that would apply to all industries. But President Biden’s announcements yesterday sent the strongest signal yet that we will soon see further regulatory action from federal OSHA on the COVID-19 front. A lot of questions remain, and we expect those to be answered in time as the new rules take effect, but we wanted to share with you what we know so far, as well as our preliminary thoughts/speculation about some of those questions.
On Labor Day, the New York State Commissioner of Health designated COVID-19 as a highly contagious communicable disease that presents a serious risk of harm to public health. Under the New York HERO Act, employers must either adopt the New York State Department of Labor’s (“NYDOL”) model prevention plan or develop and establish an alternative prevention plan that equals or exceeds the requirements in the NYDOL’s model plan.
The NYDOL issued the HERO Act Standards and model plan, which set forth the minimum requirements employers must provide to address exposure to airborne infectious diseases in the workplace, on July 7, 2021. As explained in our prior blog post, those requirements include:
employee health screenings;
employee face coverings;
personal protective equipment;
workplace hand hygiene stations and protocols, which includes adequate break times for employees to wash their hands;
cleaning and disinfecting shared equipment and frequently touched surfaces and high-risk areas;
social distancing;
complying with mandatory or precautionary orders of isolation or quarantine issued to employees;
air flow, exhaust ventilation, or other special engineering design requirements;
designation of one or more supervisors with the responsibility to ensure compliance with the prevention plan and any applicable federal, state, or local laws, rules, or guidance on preventing the spread of an airborne infectious disease;
notice to employees; and
verbal review of the infectious disease standard, employer policies, and employee rights under the NY HERO Act.
Employers were required to adopt a model plan or develop an individualized plan that met the Act’s requirements by August 5, 2021 and to provide the plan to employees by September 4, 2021. Implementation of the plan, however, is only required whenever the Commissioner of Health designates an airborne infectious disease as a highly contagious communicable disease that presents serious risk of harm to public health. As such, implementation of HERO Act plans is a bit of a moving target that employers must constantly monitor. With total cases reaching an all-time low during the pandemic earlier this summer, the NYDOL clarified that the Commissioner of Health had not (yet) designated COVID-19 as such a disease, thus making the HERO Act Standards unenforceable. That decision, however, has since changed as the highly transmissible Delta variant rages on and over 97% of US counties are now at substantial or high levels of community transmission.
Since the Commissioner of Health has made a designation, employers must now activate their written airborne infectious disease plans. The HERO Act Standards detail additional steps employers must take when implementing their airborne infectious disease exposure prevention plan, including immediately reviewing their current plan; updating the plan to incorporate current information, guidance and any mandatory requirements, as appropriate; and finalizing the plan. Employers are also required to conduct a “verbal review” of the plan’s protocols and employee rights under the Act, which is akin to a training requirement. Finally, employers must distribute the plans to employees, post a copy of the plan in the workplace, and ensure that a copy of the plan is accessible during all work shifts.
Although it is unclear whether employers will be provided some leeway/time to ensure that their plans are reviewed, updated, and implemented in the workplace, employers should promptly take steps to comply with the Act. As the Delta variant continues to surge throughout America, there will almost certainly be updated guidance regarding these plans from the NYDOL in the near future.
We know that many of our friends in the healthcare industry are knee-deep analyzing Fed OSHA’s new COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) and making adjustments to COVID-19 protocols and programs to quickly come into compliance with this onerous new regulation. Conn Maciel Carey LLP’s COVID-19 Taskforce has carefully reviewed all 1,000+ pages of the ETS, its Preamble, and the rest of the supporting documentation, and has participated in several discussions with senior leadership at OSHA about thorny provisions of the rule, so we have a good understanding of what is required. To help you understand precisely what is required of your covered facilities, and to assist with compliance implementation, we have prepared summaries of all the major requirements of the ETS below.
Hazard Assessments and COVID-19 Plans
One of the first steps employers must take is to conduct a hazard assessment of your operations to determine those areas where risk of virus transmission exists, and to then develop a response plan for dealing with those risks. The hazard assessment findings and your plans for transmission mitigation must be incorporated into a written COVID-19 Plan. Here is a summary of the ETS requirements for conducting the hazard assessment and preparing a written plan.
29 C.F.R. Section 1910.502(c) requires all employers covered by the ETS to develop and implement a COVID-19 Plan for each workplace. If the employer has more than 10 employees, the Plan must be written. This summary describes the requirements associated with the COVID-19 Plan.
Before developing the Plan, employers must conduct a workplace specific hazard assessment for the purpose of identifying and understanding where potential COVID-19 hazards exist and what controls must be implemented to reduce those hazards. Employers must inspect the entire workplace and the hazard assessment should: Continue reading →
Earlier this week, on August 23, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fully approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Earlier this year, many employers were hesitant to issue vaccine mandates and expressed concerns about potential legal risks associated with such a mandate since the COVID-19 vaccines were only approved for emergency use. While the full approval designation may not change the legal landscape as it relates to vaccine mandates, many employers may feel more comfortable imposing such mandates.
As explained in our prior blog, employers can mandate employee vaccinations under federal law. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued guidance several months ago stating that employers generally can mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for employees who physically enter the workplace without running afoul of the federal anti-discrimination laws it enforces. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) also issued a slip opinion on July 6, 2021, regarding vaccination mandates and the emergency use authorization status of the vaccines:
We conclude that section 564(e)(1)(A)(ii)(III) concerns only the provision of information to potential vaccine recipients and does not prohibit public or private entities from imposing vaccination requirements for vaccines that are subject to EUAs.Continue reading →
Today’s topic on the Fed OSHA COVID-19 ETS is health screening and medical management.
29 C.F.R. Section 1910.502(l) sets forth employee screening, employer/employee notification, medical removal, medical removal protection benefits, and return-to-work requirements. This summary describes those requirements of the ETS.
A. Employee Screening
Employers have discretion in choosing whether to implement self-monitoring and/or in-person screening. Employers who choose to have employees self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms can assist employees in that effort by providing them with a short fact sheet to remind them of the symptoms of concern. Employers may also consider posting a sign stating that any employee entering the workplace certifies that they do not have symptoms of COVID-19, to reinforce the obligation to self-screen before entering the workplace.
Employers who choose to conduct in-person employee screening for COVID-19 symptoms may use methods such as temperature checks and asking the employee if they are experiencing symptoms consistent with COVID-19. Employers should conduct this screening before employees come into contact with others in the workplace, such as co-workers, patients, or visitors.
To the extent employers choose to conduct onsite screening, there are important safety considerations to take into account. Continue reading →
Today’s topic on the Fed OSHA COVID-19 ETS is training.
Training:
29 C.F.R. Section 1910.502(n) requires that all employers covered by the ETS provide training to their employees. To the extent that the employer has already provided training and that training is compliant with the standard, the employer does not need to re-train employees. This summary describes the training requirements of the ETS.
If the employer has already provided training related to COVID-19, but the previous training did not cover all the elements required by the ETS, the employer must offer training on the elements it had not previously addressed.
As with other OSHA standards, the training required by the ETS must be administered at a literacy level and in a language employees understand. The trainer must be a person knowledgeable in the topics covered by the training and how they apply to the employee’s specific job tasks. Additionally, the training should be interactive, providing an opportunity for interactive questions and answers. An employer may satisfy the interactive requirement even if the employer offers a virtual training if the employer makes available a qualified trainer to address questions after the training or offers a telephone hotline where employees may ask questions.
The training must be designed to allow employees to understand the following: Continue reading →
Today’s topic on the Fed OSHA COVID-19 ETS is ventilation.
Ventilation
29 C.F.R. Section 1910.502(k) establishes ventilation requirements for covered facilities. This summary describes the standard’s requirements for ventilation.
The ventilation provisions of the ETS do not require employers to purchase new HVAC systems or to reconfigure existing duct work to comply with the standard. Rather, employers are required simply to increase indoor ventilation to the maximum extent possible on existing systems. New filtration equipment may be required, however, depending on the existing air filters in an HVAC system.
OSHA ventilation requirements are based on the concern that, without adequate ventilation, continued exhalation can cause the amount of infectious smaller droplets and particles produced by people with COVID-19 to become concentrated enough in the air to spread the virus to other people. OSHA explained in the preamble that the more outdoor air the HVAC system is capable of drawing into the building, the greater the impact may be on limiting the potential for the virus to accumulate.
Accordingly, the ETS establishes five main requirements that employers who own or control buildings or structures with an existing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system(s) must follow to comply with the ETS: Continue reading →
Today’s topics on the Fed OSHA COVID-19 ETS are vaccination, and patient screening and management.
Vaccination
29 C.F.R. Section 1910.502(m) requires that all employers covered by the ETS support COVID-19 vaccination for each employee. This summary describes the vaccination requirements of the ETS.
To support COVID-19 vaccination, employers must provide to their employees:
reasonable time during work hours for employees to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, and
paid leave for employees to receive vaccinations and any side effects experienced following vaccination (to the extent these occur during regular work hours).
“Reasonable time” may include, but is not limited to: Continue reading →
Broadly, OSHA’s updated COVID-19 guidance tracks CDC’s updated guidance closely. For example, OSHA now recommends that:
Fully vaccinated workers in areas of substantial or high community transmission wear masks in order to protect unvaccinated workers; and
Fully vaccinated workers everywhere in the country who experience a close contact exposure with a COVID-19 case wear a mask for 14 days or until they receive a negative COVID test taken at least 3 days after the contact.
Additionally, the guidance clarifies OSHA’s recommendations for protecting unvaccinated workers and other at-risk workers in “workplaces with heightened risk due to workplace environmental factors,” including those in manufacturing, meat and poultry processing, seafood processing and agricultural processing.
fully vaccinated people can choose to wear a mask regardless of the level of transmission, particularly if they are immunocompromised or at increased risk for severe disease from COVID-19, or if they have someone in their household who is immunocompromised, at increased risk of severe disease or not fully vaccinated; and
fully vaccinated people who have a known exposure to a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case be tested 3-5 days after exposure, and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result.
Although the guidance speaks in absolutes, we think that the general limitations that have applied to all prior mask mandates throughout the pandemic continue to inform this updated guidance; i.e., “public indoor settings” is intended to cover locations where there is the potential for exposure to another individual, and not where an employee is “alone in a room” or “alone in a vehicle.”
Is Your County Experiencing Substantial or High Levels of Transmission?
To determine whether your workplace is in a county experiencing substantial or high transmission of COVID-19, the CDC uses two different indicators, the higher of which prevails:
total new cases per 100,000 persons over the past seven days; and
Having shared a series of predictions during our January webinar regarding how OSHA would tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and reshape its priorities under new leadership during the first year of the Biden Administration, we have now taken stock of what has happened at DOL and OSHA during the first months of the Biden Administration, discussed surprise developments, and looked ahead at the remainder of 2021 and beyond. We took a close look at senior leadership now in place or on the way and analyzed what those appointments likely mean for employers. We also reviewed OSHA’s efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic, including the new healthcare-focused emergency temporary standard and updated guidance for everyone else. In addition, we examined President Biden’s efforts to make good on his promises to increase OSHA’s budget, grow the number of inspectors and generally ramp up enforcement. Lastly, we reviewed key developments in OSHA’s rulemaking agenda.
Today’s topic on the Fed OSHA COVID-19 ETS is face masks, respiratory protection, and other personal protective equipment (“PPE”)…what is required and when.
29 C.F.R. Section 1910.502(f) of the ETS establishes the personal protective equipment (“PPE”), including respiratory protection, requirements that must be implemented at covered facilities. This summary describes these requirements.
Face Masks
The standard does not mandate that all employees wear N95 or other higher-level respiratory protection at all times. Rather, it allows employees who work at covered facilities but do not have exposures to suspected or confirmed COVID-19 persons to wear face masks, defined as “surgical, medical procedure, dental, or isolation mask[s] that [are] FDA-cleared, authorized by an FDA EUA, or offered or distributed as described in an FDA enforcement policy.” Face masks must be worn on all employees indoors or when in a vehicle with another person (for work purposes). The face masks must be provided at no cost to the employee, and the employer must ensure that employees change their masks at least once per day (or when they are soiled, damaged or for other patient-care related reasons).
Certain exceptions to the requirement to wear face masks are allowed under the ETS, including when employees:
Are alone in a room
Are eating or drinking (and remain 6 feet from others or are separated by a physical barrier)
Have a medical condition, disability or religious beliefs that prevents use
Would risk serious injury or death by their use (in other words, where mask use poses a greater hazard)
Need to see another’s mouth when communicating (e.g., deaf employees)
In the above situations (except when alone or eating/drinking), the employer must ensure that employees are provided with and use Continue reading →
Having shared a series of predictions during our January webinar regarding how OSHA would tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and reshape its priorities under new leadership during the first year of the Biden Administration, we will now take stock of what has happened at DOL and OSHA during the first months of the Biden Administration, discuss surprise developments, and look ahead at the remainder of 2021 and beyond. We will take a close look at senior leadership now in place or on the way, and analyze what those appointments likely mean for employers. We will also review OSHA’s efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic, including the new healthcare-focused emergency temporary standard and updated guidance for everyone else. We will also examine Pres. Biden’s efforts to make good on his promises to increase OSHA’s budget, grow the number of inspectors and generally ramp up enforcement. We will also review key developments in OSHA’s rulemaking agenda.
Participants in this webinar will learn the following:
Today’s topic is cleaning and disinfecting…when cleaning/disinfecting is required and what needs to be cleaned/disinfected.
29 C.F.R. Section 502(j) of the ETS establishes the cleaning and disinfecting requirements that must be implemented at covered facilities. This summary describes these requirements.
In patient care areas, resident rooms, and for medical devices and equipment, the employer must follow standard practices for cleaning and disinfection of surfaces and equipment in accordance with CDC’s “COVID-19 Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations” and CDC’s “Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control,” both of which the ETS incorporates by reference. Under the ETS and CDC Guidance, cleaning refers to removal of dirt and germs using soap and water or other cleaning agents while disinfecting means using an EPA-registered, hospital-grade disinfectant included on EPA’s “List N” in accordance with manufacturers’ instructions.
Most healthcare settings have been following this CDC Guidance throughout the pandemic, so OSHA’s incorporation of these requirements into the ETS likely requires nothing new to be done when cleaning and disinfecting. Some of the more fundamental requirements Continue reading →
Today’s topic is physical distancing…when distancing is required and ways to maintain distance.
29 C.F.R. Section 1910.502(h) establishes the requirements employers covered by the ETS must follow regarding physical distancing. Employers must ensure that each employee is separated from all other people by at least 6 feet when indoors, unless the employer can demonstrate that it is not feasible to remain distant to accomplish a specific activity (e.g., hands-on medical care). This summary describes the physical distancing requirements of the ETS.
To determine when and where physical distancing is necessary in the workplace, employers must rely on the results of their hazard assessments. Places and times where people may congregate or come in contact with one another must be identified and addressed, regardless of whether employees are performing an assigned work task or not. For instance, it is typical that employees congregate during meetings or training sessions, as well as in and around entrances, bathrooms, hallways, aisles, walkways, elevators, breakrooms or eating areas, and waiting areas. All of these areas must be identified and addressed as part of the hazard assessment.
After identifying potential areas where employees may congregate and therefore where concern regarding workplace exposure is heightened, employers must develop and implement policies and procedures to comply with the 6 feet physical distancing requirements.
The ETS establishes several exceptions to the physical distancing requirements of the standard. Physical distancing is not required for employees who are fully vaccinated when those employees are in well-defined areas where there is no reasonable expectation that any person with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 will be present. (Face masking and physical barriers also are not required in this situation.)
The physical distancing requirement also does not apply Continue reading →
As previously discussed, the NY HERO Act requires all New York employers to implement workplace health and safety protocols in response to a “highly contagious communicable disease,” as designated by the New York State Commissioner of Health. On July 7, 2021, the New York Department of Labor finally released the anticipated HERO Act standards and industry-specific model plans.
Notably, the HERO Act standards only apply in relation to “an airborne infectious agent or disease designated by the Commission of Health as a highly contagious communicable disease that presents a serious risk of harm to the public health” and do not apply to “any employee within the coverage of a temporary or permanent standard adopted by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration setting forth applicable standards regarding COVID-19 and/or airborne infectious agents and diseases.”
The standards and industry-specific model plans include requirements cover the following topics:
employee health screenings,
face coverings,
physical distancing,
workplace hygiene stations,
regular cleaning and disinfecting of shared equipment and surfaces and housekeeping,
personal protective equipment,
compliance with quarantine guidelines in cases of exposure and infection response during a designated outbreak,
advanced engineering requirements, such as air flow and exhaust systems,
compliance with local laws,
the appointment of supervisory employees to maintain enforcement of these new standards,
regular reviews of employer policies, and
anti-retaliation provisions
Although the NY Department of Health continues to grapple with COVID-19 pandemic, interestingly, the NY Department of Labor has clarified that the Commissioner of Health has not designated COVID-19 as a highly contagious communicable disease. Therefore, the HERO Act standards are not currently being enforced.
