Infectious Diseases

GUIDANCE FOR CLEANING & DISINFECTING PUBLIC SPACES, WORKPLACES, BUSINESSES, SCHOOLS, AND HOMES Step 1:DEVELOP YOUR PLAN  DETERMINE WHAT NEEDS TO BE CLEANED .  Areas unoccupied for 7 or more days need only routine cleaning. Maintain existing cleaning practices for outdoor areas. 2.  DETERMINE HOW AREAS WILL BE DISINFECTED .  Consider the type of surface and how often the surface is touched. Prioritize disinfecting frequently touched surfaces.  3- CONSIDER THE RESOURCES AND EQUIPMENT NEEDED.  Keep in mind the availability of cleaning products and personal protective equipment (PPE) appropriate for cleaners and disinfectants.  Step 2:IMPLEMENT : CLEAN VISIBLY DIRTY SURFACES WITH SOAP AND WATER prior to disinfection.  USE THE APPROPRIATE CLEANING OR DISINFECTANT PRODUCT. Use an EPA-approved disinfectant against COVID-19, and read the label to make sure it meets your needs.   ALWAYS FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS ON THE LABEL.  The label will inc...

Now Available for Health Workers: The WHO Academy’s COVID-19 Mobile Learning App The WHO Academy’s mobile learning app was developed specifically for health workers and is designed to enable them to expand their life-saving skills to battle COVID-19. With content in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, the app delivers access to a wealth of COVID-19 knowledge resources developed by WHO, including up-to-the-minute guidance, tools, training, and virtual workshops to support health workers in caring for afflicted patients and in protecting themselves as they do their critical work. The app can be found via a direct link to the  Apple App Store  and  Google Play Store  or by searching “WHO Academy” in the stores.

What we have learned from COVID-19 COVID-19 is the greatest global shock in decades.  Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, and the world’s economy likely faces the worst recession since the 1930s.  The resulting loss of employment and income will cause further damage to livelihoods, health, and sustainable development.  Societies need to protect themselves, and to recover, as quickly as possible.  But we cannot go back to the way we did things before.   Increasing numbers of infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, SARS and Ebola, have made the jump from wildlife to humans - and all available evidence suggests that COVID-19 has followed the same route. Once human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 began, national and international surveillance and response systems were not strong or fast enough to completely halt transmission.  And as infections spread, a lack of universal health coverage has left billions of people, including many in rich cou...

Employees should not share headsets or other objects that are near mouth or nose. Employers should increase the frequency of cleaning commonly touched surfaces. Employees and employers should consider pilot testing the use of face masks to ensure they do not interfere with work assignments. Employers should work with facility maintenance staff to increase air exchanges in room. Employees should physically distance when they take breaks together. Stagger breaks and don’t congregate in the break room, and don’t share food or utensils.

Essential critical workers who have been exposed to COVID-19 Steps for employers Do Take employee’s temperature and assess symptoms prior to their starting work. If an employee becomes sick during the day, send them home immediately. Test the use of face masks to ensure they do not interfere with workflow. Increase air exchange in the building. Increase the frequency of cleaning commonly touched surfaces. Steps for workers Do Take your temperature before work. Wear a face mask at all times. Practice social distancing in the workplace as work duties permit. Don’t Stay at work if you become sick. Share headsets or objects used near face. Congregate in the break room or other crowded places.

New CDC Guidance Says Essential Employees Can Continue Working After Coronavirus Exposure Reversing course on employee quarantines, federal health officials now say that essential workers who've been exposed to the coronavirus can stay on the job while monitoring their symptoms. The  new guidance , released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on April 8, applies only to businesses deemed critical, such as hospitals, grocery stores and food processing plants. Previous guidance called for all workers to isolate at home for 14 days after being close to anyone suspected of having the virus, in case they too became sick and infected others. Now employees can keep working as long as they don't have symptoms, but they should wear a facemask, avoid getting close to other people, and submit to a daily temperature check. The changes came as many essential businesses such as Amazon ramped up hiring and worried about potential labor shortages. Employee quarantines hit h...

Workspaces Evolve to Allow Physical Distancing n a transformation triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the workplace of the future is arriving sooner than you might have visualized just a few months ago. HR professionals, landlords, space planners and others are contemplating how workplaces will look and feel in the near term and long term as employers adjust to new rules about maintaining physical distances, reducing workspace density and combating the spread of germs. On the germ-fighting front, for instance, experts envision installation of touchless faucets, toilets, refrigerators, coffeemakers, entryways and elevator panels. These touchless features might be controlled with a smartphone app. Some experts even foresee the removal of conference-room doors as an anti-germ measure. While some employees might wind up working from home permanently, many others will return to workplaces that are being radically reconfigured for the coronavirus era. "People will still want to go in...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) gave employers the green light to take employees' temperatures to try and ward off the spread of the coronavirus in guidance updated March 18. But will taking temperatures really work? "Generally, measuring an employee's body temperature is a medical examination," the EEOC stated. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits medical examinations unless they are job-related and consistent with business necessity. Because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local health authorities have acknowledged community spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, and have issued related precautions, "employers may measure employees' body temperature. However, employers should be aware that some people with COVID-19 do not have a fever," the agency stated. And some people with a fever do not have COVID-19. In a National Employment Law Institute (NELI) we...

Contact Tracing for Employers How to handle investigations and notifications if a worker has COVID-19 After learning that one or more employees have been diagnosed with COVID-19, companies should act quickly to identify and notify any co-workers who might have been exposed during the infectious period.  The worksite investigation, which is generally conducted by HR, is a narrower version of the contact tracing that public health officials are gearing up to do on a massive scale to contain the spread of the coronavirus as the economy reopens. Employers should be careful to maintain confidentiality and also avoid alarming the entire workforce, legal and HR experts said. "It's really not that complicated," said Travis Vance, a partner with Fisher Phillips based in Charlotte, N.C., who said he has worked with hundreds of employers on notifications of workplace coronavirus contact. The most important thing is to have a plan and implement it immediately, he said. "You'...

How Digital Contact Tracing Slowed Covid-19 in East Asia (15Apr20) Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Edit Edit in Ginger Edit in Ginger × https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-digital-contact-tracing-slowed-covid-19-in-east-asia

App-based Contract Tracing May Help End Covid-19 Lockdowns (15Apr20) Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Edit Edit in Ginger Edit in Ginger × https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/04/15/app-based-contact-tracing-may-help-end-coronavirus-lockdowns

Apple and Google Launching Covid-19 Tracing Tool (10Apr20) Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Edit Edit in Ginger Edit in Ginger × https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/10/apple-and-google-are-launching-a-joint-covid-19-tracing-tool/

Covid-19 Health Tech Info Covid-19 Contact Tracing With Bluetooth to Preserve Privacy (08Apr20) http://news.mit.edu/2020/bluetooth-covid-19-contact-tracing-0409 Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Edit Edit in Ginger Edit in Ginger ×