As the Medical Director of the Kansas Business Group on Health I’m sometimes asked to weigh in on topics that might affect employers or employees. This is a reprint of a blog post from KBGH:
As of the writing of this post, Kansas has 1,106 confirmed cases of COVID-19, enough cases that either you or someone you know likely knows an infected person. This, in turn, means many of us have been potentially exposed. Given the need for certain “critical infrastructure” workers to return to work after an exposure, CDC has released new interim guidance on returning to work. Keep in mind: this interim guidance does not apply to people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19; it applies only to people who have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 without proper personal protective equipment but has not been diagnosed with the disease.
In short, the CDC guidance statement says that exposed critical infrastructure workers—sixteen categories including law enforcement, 911 call center employees, fusion center employees, hazardous material responders, janitorial and custodial staff, and vendors in food, agriculture, critical manufacturing, informational technology, transportation, energy, and government facilities—can continue to work as long as certain conditions are met:
Employees’ temperatures should be taken and symptoms assessed before work resumes
Employees should regularly self-monitor for fever or symptoms, and if employees develop symptoms, they should not work
A face mask should be worn for 14 days since the most recent exposure, although there is evidence to support more widespread use, and this is reflected in a second CDC recommendation
Employees should maintain six feet of separation from one another if possible
Work spaces, particularly commonly touched areas, should be regularly cleaned and disinfected
If you are unsure whether your workforce belongs to a category within critical infrastructure, guidance can be found on the website of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security.
If you or an employee has been infected and was symptomatic (that is, not an asymptomatic carrier), CDC recommends one of two strategies to determine when to discontinue isolation and potentially return to work. Keep in mind these strategies take into account only the potential transmissibility of the virus and not the physical wellness of the infected patient. That is to say, just because someone is no longer contagious may not mean she is well enough to return to work:
1. A time-based, non-test-based strategy:
Persons with symptomatic COVID-19 who able to care for themselves at home may discontinue isolation if they meet all three of these conditions:
At least 7 days have passed since their symptoms first appeared and
At least 3 days (72 hours) have passed since their fever went away (without the use of fever-reducing medications like ibuprofen or acetaminophen) and
Their respiratory symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breath) have improved
2. A simplified test-based strategy:
Kansas still has a catastrophic lack of testing capacity, but if a patient is able to get re-tested, they may discontinue isolation if:
Fever has gone away (without the use of fever-reducing medications like ibuprofen or acetaminophen) and
Respiratory symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breath) have improved and
Two nasal swab specimens collected 24 hours apart are resulted negative.
To end the post on a positive note, the current statewide strategy of social distancing appears to be working. Kansas is on pace for peak resource use on April 20, but we are not expected to exceed our statewide ICU or hospital resources.
Please be safe and remember that we encourage you to check to make sure these recommendations are up to date before using them, since we learn more every day, and recommendations are changing fast. Be sure to check out and share Quizzify’s quizzes on coronavirus with your employees, which are reviewed by physicians at the Harvard Medical School. The quizzes are a fun and interactive way to learn about the virus, and they are continually updated as new information becomes available. If you have specific questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.