We recently had our first employee test positive for COVID-19. I told her coworkers that they need to quarantine. But our CEO says as long as they are symptom-free, they can still come to work. What should my policy be when an employee tests positive?
To read my answer, click here: What Should My Company’s Covid-19 Quarantine Policy Be?
At this point in time, (a year later from first lockdowns), there’s no excuse to not know the guidelines for workplace occurences,especially from the CEO’s viewpoint. Of all people, they should have the most up-to-date information at their fingertips. I am going to assume that the CEO in this company is relying on someone else (HR) to get this information passed on to the workplace situations. Regardless of personal opinion,COVID-19 is classified as a public health illness and falls under the OSHA regualtions as requiring standards of procedures to follow. Granted the CDC keeps changes the procdures but the list of what to do in the circumstances of an infected individual was listed correctly in the article,with the exception of one thing. –Santizing cleanup of all areas that the employee had access to touch/ sneeze/ cough/etc. There should be no hedging on denial of leave of absence during the required quaratine period. As for the other employees, that is a wakeup call for them to evaluate their own safety precautions at work. The key questions is how close were they in that 15 minute period of time and were they wearing masks and what where they handling,plus did they do any hand washing or at least use hand sanitizer. Then they should closely watch themselves for the next 4-5 days for any symtoms, if needed they can get a list of what to look for from HR. An immediate exposure may not result in any illness at all, and may not produce a positive COVID-19 result on a test. Encourage them to go for testing at least and definitely if they start to have symtoms, they should follow the quaratine rules. Look at grocery workers, who have exposure to multiple people all day, and don’t get infected unless they and the infected are both not maintaining safety precautions and are in extremely close contact for that 15 minute time period. Hence the need to maintain safety precautions continually.
The CDC has clarified that the 15 minute time period for possible exposure is 15 minutes over a 24-hour period. It doesn’t have to be a single, continuous, 15 minute period of time. This interpretation vastly expands the pool of persons possibly exposed. No one wants to create — or find themselves in — a coronavirus super-spreader situation. Therefore, we all need to continue to err on the side of caution. The growing availability of vaccinations provides — hopefully — a light at the end of this now year-long tunnel. We’re not there yet, but just need to get from here to there.