Off the Shelf Solutions for Workplace COVID-19 Protection
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Date
Apr 30, 2021 -
Time
13:00 PM EST -
Duration
90 Min
Preparing for OSHA Requirement: Off the Shelf
Solutions for Workplace COVID-19 Protection
Overview:
The recent resurgence
in Covid-19 cases has resulted in calls for another nation-wide shutdown to
prevent the disease from spreading and overwhelming hospitals. A wide array of
countermeasures from OSHA, ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating
and Air-Conditioning Engineers), and other authoritative sources is however
readily available to workplaces to protect workers and other stakeholders (such
as customers) to make a shutdown unnecessary. The effectiveness of ordinary
face masks can meanwhile be increased enormously, and at little cost. This
presentation will cover these non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and
provide links to the authoritative sources in question.
What Will You Learn?
1.
The bad news is that
Covid-19 is making a comeback, and one company was shut down after an outbreak.
The good news is however that OSHA’s "Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for
COVID-19" (March 2020) gives us a good idea of what to expect in a standard
or regulation. Its contents can be used immediately, and have been used in
workplaces around the country.
2. Planning considerations are relatively simple
and straightforward, although any OSHA regulation is likely to require a
documented program for Covid-19 prevention. Planners need to account for two
very specific risks:
·
Contagion from a cough
is probably the most dangerous risk as it can project contagious aerosols to 10
or more feet (as determined in 1918 in the context of the worldwide flu
epidemic). Countermeasures against a cough will protect against contagion from
ordinary respiration and speech, but not necessarily the other way around.
·
Contagion from
contaminated surfaces is a secondary risk.
·
Create a risk register
of activities (processes) and/or locations that might expose people to these
risks. "By location" may be better because many locations, such as
elevators, are not part of any workplace process.
·
The good news is that
most jobs outside of health care and emergency response seem to fall into
"medium risk" as defined by OSHA, for which a formal respiratory
protection program (and respirators as opposed to face masks) will not be
required.
3. Hierarchy of controls, in order of preference
·
Eliminate the risk.
·
Reduce the risk
·
Engineering controls protect
us regardless of vigilance or compliance
·
Administrative
controls, such as admonitions to stay 6 feet or more away from other people,
rely on vigilance and compliance, and often do not work (although they can be
improved to some degree)
·
Personal protective
equipment (PPE) is a last line of defense and not a license to engage in risky
behavior such as large gatherings.
4. Eliminate the hazard
·
Coronavirus cannot
travel across phone lines or the Internet so telecommuting, distance education,
and distance conferencing reduce the risk to zero.
·
Organizations that
have been forced to resort to telecommuting and distance educations have
discovered that these approaches eliminate substantial costs, and there are
strong business arguments for continuing them even after a vaccine becomes
available as expected in 2021. They can, for example, eliminate the cost of
doing business in a large city.
5. Reduce the hazard
·
Home delivery,
curbside pickup, and drive-up banking all serve to reduce the risk although
they do not eliminate it entirely.
6. Engineering controls
·
Distance (between
respiratory tracts) is our friend. Distance can be added with partitions, e.g.
between restaurant tables, without the need for more floor space.
·
Improved ventilation
reduces the amount of contagious material present. Ultraviolet air disinfection
has been around for roughly 70 years and is a readily available off the shelf
solution. ASHRAE's web site offers extensive guidance.
7. Administrative controls
·
Social distancing
relies on vigilance and compliance, which appear to drop off in stores (except
in checkout lanes where markers tell people where to stand). Personal care
(e.g. barber shop) by appointment, however, reduces the number of people
waiting which improves convenience while reducing the risk of getting Covid-19.
·
Staggered work shifts
reduce the number of people present in the workplace at any time.
·
Attendance policies
should discourage people who might have the disease from going to work, as
opposed to making them feel compelled to do so to avoid missing paychecks or
other negative consequences. Temperature checks are good but not certain
because many asymptomatic people do not run fevers.
8. Personal protective equipment (PPE)
·
When a job requires
respiratory protection (as defined by OSHA), face masks will not do. A formal
respiratory protection program is required, and this includes not just
provision of respirators (e.g. N95 or better) but also a fit testing program
and other considerations. The good news is however that medium risk jobs are
unlikely to require this.
·
Respirators—and N100
or P100 is more than 150 times as good as N95—offer the best protection not
only due to the fact that their filters will stop 95% (N95) to 99.97% (N100 or
P100) of challenge particles but also the fact that they seal completely around
the user's nose and mouth.
·
Face masks offer
protection that ranges from extremely good (e.g. ASTM Level 2 and Level 3
surgical masks) to practically useless depending on the material of
construction. Their failure to seal around the nose and mouth detracts
substantially from their performance but this can be addressed inexpensively
with mask tighteners and mask braces, e.g. as described by FixTheMask.com. The
Durand hospital mask of 1918, which fastened behind the head, was meanwhile far
superior to the ear loop masks in use today, at least in terms of preventing
leakage around the sides.
·
Beware of counterfeit
and substandard PPE. Unscrupulous sellers are offering counterfeit respirators,
and also face masks with dubious claims, to people who are rightly frightened
of Covid-19.
·
Face protection, such
as face shields and chemical protective goggles, may reduce the risk three-fold
by protecting the eyes from contagious aerosols. (Gillespire, Claire. 2020.
"Should You Wear Goggles to Protect Against Coronavirus? Here's What
Experts Told Us." https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/goggles-covid
and Dr. Fauci also has recommended this.)
Disclaimer; nothing in
this presentation constitutes formal engineering or occupational health and
safety advice.
Benefits for Attending:
Attendees will learn,
and be able to deploy, a wide array of highly effective actions, e.g. as
offered by OSHA, ASHRAE, and other sources, to protect workers and other
stakeholders from Covid-19 to ensure stakeholder safety along with continuity
of operations. These include engineering and administrative controls, and
personal protective equipment (PPE), when it is not possible to eliminate the
risk completely through work-from-home, distance education, and remote
conferencing.
Who Should Attend?
·
C-level Executive
· OSHA Professionals
· EHS Personals.
· All Managers
· Safety/ Security Professionals
· Office layout planner, and others with responsibility for mitigation of COVID-19 risks.
· Human Resource Professionals
· All people with responsibility for reopening businesses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as people with responsibility for occupational health and safety (OH&S) compliance along with building layouts and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC).
(NOTE: Attendees will
receive a copy of the slides and accompanying notes, including links to the cited
references, as a pdf handout)
William A. Levinson, P.E., FASQ, CQE is the
principal of Levinson Productivity Systems, P.C, which specializes in lean
manufacturing, quality management, and industrial statistics. He is also the
author of several books on quality, productivity, and management, of which the
most recent is The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work: Henry Ford's
Universal Code for World-Class Success.
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