注意:这篇文章于2020年7月2日更新。
Currently, information on the spread and handling of COVID-19 cases, social distancing, quarantine measures and the like are abundant. It is extremely important to understand COVID-19 and know where to find the most reliable information to keep you, your employees, and your business safe, productive, and informed on the most recent information. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is widely considered the foremost authority in the US and the World Health Organization (WHO) is the international leader for all diseases and outbreaks. From a workplace safety perspective, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) always has the employee in mind. The CDC, WHO, and OSHA are continually updating their COVID-19-specific pages to reflect real time data and provide the most recent recommendations and guidance. We do not recommend – as well-intentioned as they may be– your Uncle Rusty on Facebook or your Great Aunt Melba on Instagram being your sole source of information.
One of the most important things you can do to prepare your business or facility for the COVID-19 pandemic is to educate your employees about the symptoms, how it is spread, and how to prevent or limit the spread of the disease. Knowing the characteristics of the disease and acknowledging that, if given the opportunity, it could shut down your facility or office, helps gain employee participation in limiting its reach.
为了保护,教育和准备其员工,Braun Intertec成立了Covid-19个小组制度委员会,manbet体育滚球可以从上述资源中摘要信息,并创建公司政策和议定书。开发的计划对于限制曝光并通过您的组织传播至关重要。委员会迅速响应和制定了向员工分发的战略,程序和信息,并继续召开局势发展。持久性,勤奋和灵活性的一面都是需要平息风暴所要求的。
We are all going to know somebody that is infected with COVID-19. Braun as a company is preparing under the assumption of “when”, not “if”. It is not a matter of “if” we will be impacted, it is the question of “when” we will be impacted, and “when” that happens, we want to be prepared.
Of the various resources that the COVID-19 Task Force Committee is using, one of the most useful is OSHA’sGuidance on Preparing Workplace for COVID-19document that outlines the potential affects to workplaces, how to reduce exposure, outlines the various exposure classifications, and how to handle international travel. We highly encourage you to review this document if you have not already. Business continuity is essential and using OSHA and CDC resources to develop a plan will help keep and encourage employee health and safety.
If you can procure the cleaning supplies, disinfecting your facility or office on a routine basis is relatively easy to do if your employees pitch in and do their part. Employees should wash their hands, avoid touching their mouths, noses and eyes, cough and sneeze into disposable towels, and disinfect their work area. As a business or employer, it is your responsibility to provide the appropriate cleaning materials and disinfect communal areas such as break rooms, conference rooms, light switches, doorknobs/handles, etc., as well encourage safe and healthy behaviors. Providing sanitizer for hands, alcohol patches for computers and mice, and other relevant items for employee use will help encourage active cleaning. Each business is unique and requires special considerations to keep your employees healthy, minimize disruption of operations, and control the spread of COVID-19. Some questions you can ask yourself and your colleagues: Do you use community or pool vehicles? Are you cleaning those vehicles after each use? Do you have a computer station multiple people use? Is there a disinfection plan for it?
由于当前的危机,公司是鲜明的ng alternate work schedules, the use of remote desktops to work from home, social distancing, limits to travel, etc. in an effort to “flatten the curve”. We encourage your company to develop Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response Plans to help prepare for an infection and set protocols on how to identify and isolate a sick employee effectively. A plan can also lay out specific decontamination procedures to be followed for “normal” operations and for when an employee becomes impacted.
Engineering and administrative controls are more effective than personal protective equipment, PPE [who wants to type in nitrile gloves and a respirator?]. These controls can include: installing high efficiency air filters, increasing air exchanges, installing physical barriers, encouraging sick workers to stay/work from home, minimizing group meetings or social events, allowing alternative work schedules, implementing COVID-19 job hazard analysis (JHA) and Health and Safety Plan (HASP) considerations, discontinuing non-essential travel, or establishing contractor and visitor protocols. However, it is also important to remember that it is the responsibility of the employer to provide appropriate PPE to its employees while they are performing responsibilities that may expose them to COVID-19. A well thought out plan serves as a roadmap to employee health and safety.
最佳安全措施,如消毒工作场所应经常(经常按日常)完成以控制任何疾病的传播。这种做法现在比以往任何时候都更重要。美国化学委员会已制定了指导,如何消毒经常触摸的表面, available for free download. Hard surfaces can be disinfected with warm water with soap or detergent prior to disinfection with wipes, sprays, and bleach or alcohol solutions. Soft surfaces such as carpets, chairs, curtains/drapes, and office furniture can be scraped of visible contamination and disinfected with a soap and water solution and a disinfectant spray. If you want to know which disinfectants are the most effective for use against the novel coronavirus, the following resource might be helpful:用于SARS-COV-2的消毒剂。Share your plan with the custodial staff and foster good communication up and down the chain-of-command.
Disinfecting an area where a known or suspected COVID-19 case may be best left to the professionals. OSHA indicates that under most circumstances (unless the infected employee has left behind blood or other bodily fluids), no special considerations need to be made when disinfecting the area. However, determining if infected bodily fluids are still present is difficult and a professional disinfection company may be able to decontaminate the area more effectively than performing disinfection in-house. Healthcare and deathcare (yikes, what a term…) facilities are not considered average workplaces with average potential for exposure and should be treated differently. Because novel coronavirus can be spread via respirable droplets that could be suspended in the air, it is best to isolate the areas with potential infection for at least 24 hours prior to entering for disinfection to allow suspended droplets to drop and dry on surfaces. An important consideration – and potentially another reason to hire a professional disinfectant team — is that in order to handle blood or body fluids, an employee must have taken the OSHA Bloodborne Pathogen training (29 CFR 1910.1030)潜在的ppe(29 CFR 1910 Subpart I) and Hazard Communication (29 CFR 1910.1200) standards. An additional benefit to contracting a disinfection specialist company is that they can handle and dispose of the decontamination waste in accordance with Regulated Medical Waste (RMW) and Department of Transportation (DOT) rules.
There is not a single prescribed plan that will apply to all businesses in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic so we recommend input from various levels within your business to determine what works best for your facility. However, there are valuable resources that can help your business prepare. We have experienced Certified Industrial Hygienists, consultants and staff with Masters of Public Health degrees that can help you with decontamination plans, Health and Safety Plans, Job Hazard Assessments, and your businesses response and communication with employees.
It will take persistence, diligence, and flexibility but we will get through this together (well… as together as we can be while maintaining a healthy 6-foot distance from each other). Stay safe and wash your hands.
Update from July 2, 2020
由于我们在3月份为工作场所发布了第一个Covid-19指导,因此该国的大部分地区已经进出了账面,非必要的企业已经通过旋转开放和关闭的旋转门,使用面部覆盖物已成为一个政治分频器。We still do not know all the answers, we do not exactly know what the numbers mean, we do not exactly know how long the virus will survive on a surface, and we still don’t know when this pandemic is going to be under control.
但是我们所知道的,以弗所的Heraclitus最好地说,“生活中唯一的常量是改变”。在这些不寻常的时期,我们知道它需要持久性,勤奋和耐心阻止Covid-19的传播。积极测试的数量在全国范围内迅速增长,并且变得明显,最糟糕的Covid-19不会预计很快就会预测。如果您尚未建立书面重新开放计划和/或消毒和清洁计划,现在是一个非常好的考虑这样做。除了CDC和谁,私人专业团体,如美国工业卫生协会(AIHA),美国安全专业人士(ASSP),以及许多其他人发表了指导和建议。好消息是,大多数建议都保持相对一致。
我们所知道的是,来自每个人的合作是我们在另一边出来的大流行。基础知识仍然是一样的:
- Practice social distancing (maintain 6 feet between each other).
- Wear a face covering.
- Wash your hands often and for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water.
- 常见的频繁接触点和disin消毒fect work spaces (offices/cubicles) daily using EPA N-listed disinfectants and abide by the dwell time for the specific products.
- Encourage your employees to work from home, if possible; or minimize the number of employees in the office and maximize the space between them.
- When possible, introduce as much outdoor (clean) air and properly ventilate your work spaces.
虽然我们处于这种半重新开放的经济状态,但这是实施书面计划的一个很好的时机。我们可以帮助您通过并巩固安全重新开放或继续运营的建议,以帮助最大限度地减少传播的潜力。如果您对某些领域有疑问或在您的设施中有Covid-19的确认案例,我们还可以执行采样活动,以帮助您确定您的消毒活动是否充分消毒该领域。
Our consultants can perform an evaluation based on the presence of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), a secondary indicator of the presence of microorganisms including bacteria AND viruses or COVID-19 specific swab testing. While the ATP testing is cheaper and quicker, the COVID-19-specific testing is a now available and a recommended option for particularly sensitive operations or large outbreaks.
请访问这一点article,有关Covid-19清洁和消毒计划的更多信息。
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