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What’s the deal with the new California COVID guidance?
Earlier this week, California’s Department of Public Health relaxed its isolation and testing guidelines. They say people with COVID symptoms should be excluded from work for just 24 hours and then can return with a mask as long as they’re 24-hours fever-free and their symptoms are “mild and improving.” People who are COVID-positive but have no symptoms can continue to work throughout despite their positive test but should mask. In all cases, it recommends masking for 10 days after returning to work and avoiding contact with “those who are at higher risk” for 10 days. These recommendations are a major divergence from CDC guidelines, which still recommend a 5-day exclusion for COVID symptoms and positive tests. They also pose a challenge to employers since “mild and improving” are very subjective measures by which to return a sick employee. Our early advice is to continue adhering to the more stringent CDC guidelines until we see whether there are any challenges to this recommendation since the federal OSHA requirements are more stringent than these new California ones, which might create some legal landmines that companies need to navigate. Soon, though, we may see much shorter exclusions for California businesses and will be keeping a very close eye on this in the coming weeks.
Sources: CDPH, Fisher Phillips
If an employee tests positive right after work, what are the chances his coworkers on that shift will get sick? Is it higher if they worked a double shift with him?
There are a lot of factors that impact whether someone gets COVID after exposure - including their immunity from previous infections or vaccinations and how infectious the person was that they were exposed to. But two of the biggest are time and proximity. A new study shows that your chances of getting sick increase linearly based on the hours you spend with an infectious person, about a 1% increase per hour. Household contacts, who were spending many, many hours together each day, made up only 6% of contacts but a full 40% of transmissions. So, the chances that other employees get sick definitely increase over time. If someone worked a 16-hour shift with the infectious person, they’re over 8% more likely to get sick than someone who worked a single shift. But if they live together or hang out for hours outside of work, they’re far more likely than other coworkers to actually get sick.
A few employees at one location have recently been diagnosed with herpes, and there’s a lot of concern and misinformation going around. Can someone with herpes work?
For context, there are two herpes viruses (Herpes simplex virus 1 and 2), and there are two types of herpes disease (oral and genital). HSV-1 can cause oral herpes, which can cause cold sores or blisters on the mouth area. Oral herpes is incredibly common in the US; 50 to 80% of adults have it (though some people never have any symptoms)! HSV-1 can also cause genital herpes when someone with oral herpes has oral sex and spreads it. HSV-2 causes all other cases of genital herpes and is spread via sexual contact. About 1 in 6 adults in the US have genital herpes. There is very little workplace risk with herpes. If an employee has cold sores or fever blisters, they should avoid sharing utensils or drinks, kissing, or allowing anyone else to touch their open sores. But oral herpes is so common that if we excluded everyone with cold sores, no businesses would be able to stay open. Education is key here - arm managers with good information that they can share with their employees. Anyone seeking more information about oral or genital herpes can check out the CDC website, as well.
Source: CDC