OSHA Compliance During COVID19 Legal Overview

I'm trying to connect us to, uh, YouTube because it's not—

I didn't send you my bio, but you probably know enough about me.

Yeah, I pulled it from the website.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I pulled it from—

oh, those are all lies. They didn't— there was nothing on that that was true. Yeah.

Yeah, so I think, I think we're, I think we are good to go. Let me get back to the Zoom. All right, okay, so let me start letting everybody in, um, so we should be ready to go.

Alright, sounds good. Alright.

Hi everyone, welcome to our webinar today. Thank you for joining us. We're going to give it a few minutes for everybody to come in. Um, we have a little over 700 people registered. I'm not sure if we're going to have 700 attendees, but we have 500 spots and we are live streaming on YouTube. I tried to send out YouTube links to everyone that registered, but everyone who's participating in today's webinar will also have a— get a copy of the webinar recording at the end. So we're going to give it a couple more minutes so that everybody could come in. Who's registered and, and who wants to participate. So it takes Zoom about 2 minutes or so to let everybody in from the waiting room, so we will start shortly. Bless you, Ed.

Yeah, um, all right.

All right, everyone, we're going to start really quickly. I want to take this opportunity to thank you for registering for this webinar. As I said, we've had an overwhelming response to people who showed an interest in this, and then we've, we've had folks registering up to 2 minutes ago. We will have a live recording of the webinar available for everyone who registers and anyone who registered for the event. I know that some companies sent it out to a bunch of people. I'm not sure if everybody's going to be able to get in, but we have almost 300 people logged in right now. So thank you again for joining us. This is the OSHA Compliance During COVID-19: A Legal Overview. I'm going to do some housekeeping, tell you a few things, introduce our speaker, and then we will go from there. This webinar is really working— we're really trying to capture OSHA compliance during COVID-19. What should employers be doing? What should HR be doing? What should you be doing individually as a business owner? And that's pretty much what we are, what we are on the webinar for today. This webinar is in partnership with workcompseminars.com, which is my company, and Fisher and Phillips. Ed Fuchs, I'm going to say your name wrong, Ed, is the, is our presenter for today's webinar. So before we begin, I want to give everybody some housekeeping tips and tools. We have a Q&A box. I'd like to ask everybody, if you have questions, to put your questions into the Q&A. I will be monitoring the Q&A as we're going. As I'm asking Ed questions, we will banter back and forth. That is the format of this. We're not going to have a formal presentation. What we're trying to do is to listen to what you have to say. We have some pre-canned questions that we have developed that we we think is important for you to have for today's event, and then we will go back and forth on that, and then we will answer questions from the Q&A. Everyone will get a survey at the end of this. The survey will probably be emailed to you. We ask that you complete the survey. If there are other topics around OSHA that you'd like to hear from us, please go ahead and complete and add that to the survey. Most of you have no idea who I am, and so I figured let me go ahead and introduce myself to you. My name is Margaret Spence. I am the founder and CEO of C. Douglas and Associates. We are a leading HR and risk management consulting company. We're based here in Florida. I've been in the consulting space for 21 years, and prior to that, I was a workers' comp adjuster and HR director. I was the VP of HR for a large organization for a number of years. I've run my company for as I said, 21 years. We work with workers' compensation compliance, employee safety and health, and we work with organizations to help them value employees pre- and post-injury by establishing prudent policies so that employees feel valued working for the organization. Our speaker today is Ed, and he is with Fisherman Phillips. I met Ed, oh my gosh, probably, I don't know, 15, 12, 15 years ago, I guess. I'm not even sure how long. It's probably 10 years, maybe more than that. We both sat on the special expertise panel for the Society for Human Resource Management, SHRM, and Ed is what I call a legal eagle in the OSHA regulatory space. He's a partner in the Atlanta office, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. office of Fisher and Phillips. And he is a former co-chair of the firm's Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Management Practice Group. Prior to joining Fisher and Phillips, Ed was the Assistant Secretary for— Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. He was named to that position by George W. Bush to head OSHA and served from April 2006 to November 2008. During his tenure, OSHA's workplace injury, illness, and fatality rates dropped to the lowest rates they've been in recorded history. So join me in welcoming Ed to our webinar. I also want to tell you guys about two other programs we have coming up back to back from this. We have a free webinar on May 7th, which is two days from now, on multi-state workers' comp defense and plaintiff. What I've done is I've brought together five attorneys from some of the key states to talk about the things that we're seeing in terms of litigation from a workplace compliance and from HR. So we're having that webinar on May 7th, and then on May 12th, we're going to talk about integrated leave and disability management, um, with Alicia Thompson. She is a former accommodation and disability consultant for Amazon, and for 21 years she was the director of workers' comp return to work with Macy's. She is really going to talk about how do you accommodate, um, an employee who asks for a disability or ask for an accommodation related to COVID-19, which I don't think employers are even thinking about that. So one of the things that we're trying to do is really offer some cutting-edge webinars so that you are prepared. So today we're going to cover a, a pretty myriad of things. Um, we have a list of questions, and so we're going to go through a bunch of those questions, and then Ed and I are going to banter back and forth about them. So what I'm going to do is, um, I'm going to stop sharing my screen so that we can actually talk together. So, Ed, welcome.

Good afternoon, everyone, or maybe good morning. And since it's 2, I guess it could be 11 o'clock on the West Coast.

On the West Coast, yeah.

Yeah. But thank you for having me here. Yeah. So as you can see, I'm at home. So, and I got up a minute ago, I had to shut my door because I have a 7-year-old daughter, so, and she has a habit of wanting to be my assistant.

Oh gosh, yes, yes.

Um, I'm fully up to all the stuff on the coronavirus, but she does— I'm trying to remember what she said that she— today we had Granny's coming today, and she said that she didn't have to social distance with Granny because she's family.

So, okay, got it. Well, I had to lock my door too, because I have a little Yorkie that decides that she should enter every time I'm having a webinar. So I had to— I had— I've lifted her up a couple times and said, hey, you know, here she is, but I don't want to do that today. So, so, Ed, what— where do you want to start?

What do you— I was thinking maybe the best place to start is kind of talking a little bit about where OSHA is right now in this this whole coronavirus pandemic issues. And they've been very active. I've had a lot of interviews where I've had a lot of people from certain media perspective where they would want— were hoping that I was going to trash OSHA for the job that they're doing during the pandemic. And I would just say it's the exact opposite. They've been very aggressive and very forceful. You know, I know the Dems and the unions have kind of said they should have to do an emergency rule on viruses and infectious diseases. But, you know, what they're doing here, what they focus in on, is they're trying to provide as much assistance and help to all employers that they could possibly do. Now, and the reason that— part of the reason they're doing this is Unfortunately for OSHA, they had to shelter at home just like all— a lot, pretty much all of us. And, you know, most of the— as I understand it, most of the OSHA area offices only have 1 or maybe 2 persons on site at any one time, and that's been this way for almost over a month and a half now. So one thing that's going to be of interest to— and I think when this is over with is there's going to be a big focus, or once they go back to work. I'm going to say, I don't think this is the corona— the pandemic, unfortunately, I don't think is going to be over with, you know, in the very near future. I think we'll be able to return to work and start doing more of that as time goes on. I think— I'm in Georgia here, I'm in Atlanta, and I have, you know, the governor here has been very, very forceful in trying to move forward with the, um, back to return to work because, uh, and we'll see how, uh, he's kind of led the way, to be quite honest. And we'll see how that works out. I'm hopeful for that. It will, because I know there's most employee— most employees, I think, want to go back to work, although we're going to talk a little bit about their concerns. And I think that is a valid reason, and that there's things that OSHA is going to be looking at. But what OSHA has been focusing on since they have not had, um employ— their inspectors in the office are able to go out to the sites. They have basically focused on fatality investigations, catastrophic accidents, and some coronavirus issues, particularly focused on the— in the hospitals and nursing homes. That's kind of where they've done— been doing their on-site inspections. The rest— and they have been inundated by complaints. They've handled— and how they've been handling that is they've used these— the informal complaint process using their rapid response. And so up to now, they've not done— the number of inspections has dramatically dropped off. And I think once they get the go-ahead to go back to work for them, they'll be doing a lot of inspections. They're going to probably try to do a lot of makeup inspections. In certain industries, particularly in the construction industry, I would suspect you're going to see a lot of inspections occurring there because when I was head of OSHA, that's, you know, we would be behind our numbers. They— we always had a kind of a rough number goal to it monthly to achieve, to, to get a certain number by the end of the year, end of the fiscal year. And inevitably, every year I was there, uh, as, as at OSHA you know, come April, March, April, we were always kind of behind on the number of inspections if you broke it down by a monthly number. But come May, even in the beginning of it, even part of end of April, but beginning May, June, July, all during the summer months, they were very much— there was an inspection focus, a lot of focus on construction. And you had a lot of— you would have where inspectors would be going on site and would be open, opening not just one inspection number but several inspection numbers depending on all the different subcontractors that were there. So I think you're going to see a real focus on doing a lot of inspections. I won't be surprised if they're going to be out there looking for drive-bys type of— looking for, you know, what they observe as violations. So it's going to be very interesting. The other thing that's been going on, and they've had a little— they've been trying to address this. This has been a very tough issue with them. There's been a lot of whistleblower complaints that have been filed. And I anticipate that when things— when businesses actually start going back to work, that's when you're going to see a lot of whistleblower claims being filed. So we need to be focused on that when we're dealing with bringing people back to work. There are people that are, you know, who were furloughed who are not going to be brought back to work. And inevitably, I suspect you're going to see a significant number of those employees filing whistleblower complaints claiming that they complained about safety issues and as a result they were, they were not brought, they weren't brought back. So I anticipate that's where you're going to see a lot of complaints too. So employers need to be ready to be able to handle OSHA inspections, know their rights and that they have, because most unfortunately most employers don't know their rights during an OSHA inspection. And then and, and handle the inspection like they should. So, uh, but I think that's going to— so, but next, the other thing I think is, is just us returning back to work. I mean, that's going to be a big issue and the steps that they're going to have to deal with. And I think those are some of the things we can talk a little bit about. I'm sure that your— the participants on this program are going to be— are interested about how do I start, how do I get going, starting to get back to work. Now, the people that have been the, the essential businesses, they didn't stop working, and they have an advantage to a certain degree. And, and so they won't have the, the issues, as many issues of getting back ramped up 100% like the people that have been completely closed. So we're going to be— we're going to talk about this, but one of the guiding principles I would tell you, everyone that's on the program today, I would just say What you need to do from an OSHA perspective, um, is— and, and from a litigation expect— you talked about your workers' comp litigation, whatever you're going to be doing. I think that's— there's a lot of— that's a huge issue. Huge, huge, huge. And, um, what you're going to have to be, uh, what you need to be doing is you need to make sure that you are looking and knowing what are the— what are the OSHA guidance rules, what are the CDC guidance rules.. They put out some great guidance. And as I mentioned, I started— was starting to talk about the stuff that OSHA has put out. There is a ton of information out there for you to help, and it's guidance information. And that was one of the questions I had from a client, uh, this— at this, uh, before this program, uh, early this afternoon, is that one of the questions was, uh, well, what about, um, you know, using plexiglass? OSHA talks about in their guidance that they put on retail workers, they talked about part of the things about using plexiglass. Is this— if we— do we have to use plexiglass to protect our employees? Are there other things we can do? And, you know, the— it's guidance. The information there is guidance, so it's not binding. And, uh, but we need to make sure that we are doing some stuff. That's why I'm saying you really need to look at the— if you're following the CDC rules or guidance, if you're following the OSHA guidance there, it's going to be harder for plaintiffs' lawyers to come after you. And so that's kind of the first thing I would say, uh, make sure you're aware what's that— what guidance is out there on that, and if possible following that. And then we can go into all the different things. Maybe as we go here, we can talk a little bit about what else you want to, uh, uh, what else we want to— what we should be doing as part of the process, step process to restart our businesses.

Yeah, so one of the things that I think when you and I talked a couple weeks ago, we were— I was talking about, let's talk healthcare, because what happened is when I put this out, we got a lot of dental offices, doctors' offices. I have a few nursing homes and so on and so forth that registered. So let me start with healthcare first because I think let's just segment it out. We had a— I went through the attendee registration and we probably had, um, a ton and ton of, um, a ton of people asking about, um, um, dental offices and, and contacts. So if I am a doctor's office, let's start there. If I'm a doctor's office, I think, what would you recommend that they do? Go to the CDC guidelines and follow that to the letter for healthcare practitioners? Is that what's what the requirement would be?

Well, they have put out a lot of information on healthcare workers and what— how to protect them. And so that— and of course there have been a lot of different things about, you know, N95 respirators, how, you know, because of the shortage of those respirators, how they can be extended, the life expectancy and all that. So you have that. They did put out a kind of a 5-step process to reopening workplace, the CDC did. And, um, and so they're, they're talking about different types of things that you would be looking at to be able to, uh, to move forward. And one of the things they first talked about, and I think this is just a general, uh, general, um, it kind of applies to everybody, but, uh, but it does apply to the healthcare industry too, too. But one of the things is one of the questions is you gotta— when you— before you open up, you're really going to have to ask You know, what's going on? Now, here in Atlanta, and like I say, in Georgia, we have a lot relaxed. There's been a push to get things reopened, so there's a little bit more relaxed. So I think you're going to have to look in your particular community. Have you seen the mitigation? Has there been significant mitigation in the virus in your community that— so that, that the risk is diminished. And I think that's one of the things that they're looking at, and that's the one thing that CDC was looking at. So they're telling them, before you even start looking at it, let's look at the community, what's happening there. You know, are we going to be in compliance with all state or local orders? And that's the other thing. I mean, you know, I— we've been dealing with a lot of different questions on coronavirus, and one of the issues I was dealing with was, uh, was in, uh, was in Florida, was dealing with the car washes and there were different counties that had different ordinances. Some said that car washes were essential businesses, others were not essential businesses. And when they— so they couldn't be open. And so it was very interesting. So I would say you need to look at what are your local orders, because there were a lot of counties around this country that did promulgate. I mean, all the governors promulgated their executive orders on staying, you know, sheltering at home. And now they're moving to opening. So I think yesterday on the NBC News, they said there were 38 states that have now— some are now moving to reopen at least part of their businesses. So I think you're going to have to look what is out there, what has the— what is the— particularly starting at the state level, looking at what your governor's orders are, because the feds are not really dictating. The states that really are able to do more of that type of thing. So let's look at what you are— are you in compliance with the state and local ordinances or orders? I guess it's not really ordinances because they were kind of directives or whatever. So, and then of course, the question— the other thing you're going to be is— the question you have to be before you even start opening up is saying, how are we going to protect our employees? Because when you look at OSHA, that's what they're looking at. Yeah, and they've already been talking about citing employers under the general duty clause. And so they're going to be looking at what have you done to make sure to protect your employees, particularly for the healthcare industry. Those are at a higher risk. Now, dentists, doctors' offices, if you're not dealing with COVID-19 patients, that's obviously a little bit different. You're, you're, you're not at, you're not at the really high, high risk. As opposed to people that are just in the emergency rooms and dealing with patients, coronavirus patients, on a daily basis. So I think you're going to have to be able to look at that. Then you're going to have to start looking at what are you going to do, how are you going to implement this. I mean, a lot of the doctors' offices have been calling their patients prior to them coming to the office and asking them the questions that we've been asking now for a month and a half. You know, do you have a fever? Do you have a cough? Do you— have you, uh, have you been around anybody that has, uh, that you know has been tested positive coronavirus? Have you been overseas? Those— and I could— I think the overseas thing is now kind of faded because, uh, there's just not— I mean, they No one's flying.

Flying. Very little externally, right?

Yes. So I think that— so if you think you can open safely in order to do it, then you're going to have to start looking at, I think, different types of safety issues there. You know, what are you going to be— your health, your hygiene practices. You mean, I just— I was dealing with some earlier. I was dealing with a client, and there They are, they have, they're a, what was he saying, kind of like an amusement park in a way. They're very much focused on trying to figure out how do they, how can you safely open for their employees. First of all, they're looking at the health of their employees, and so, but also the health of their guests, and so And it's the same way we got clients coming into our offices to do— if you're a doctor or something, you need to be looking at, so what are the hygiene practices we're going to do? You know, a lot of, a lot of places when they come in, they're asking— they're first of all, for the first things they're asking is before they, you know, even come in, they ask and use the sanitizer that's outside there, or once they come inside, they use the hand sanitizer. And before they fill out any paperwork. Once again, you're providing that, but of course the receptionist there have on their mask, maybe has some safety glasses depending on the traffic, the amount of traffic that you're having. And then secondly, you know, now you're seeing more and more, and that's in the guidance, OSHA's guidance for retail workers, they talked about this plexiglass, and that's where this whole thing has come up about plexiglass. Plexiglass, and let me tell you, the McDonald's down the street has Plexiglass on the takeout windows. The Publix up the street has Plexiglass in front of their pharmacist. So I think you're going to see more and more of this, and because of, unfortunately, the long-term nature of this, investing in that type of physical barrier may be justified. But clearly you're going to have to have the, the, the PPE to protect your employees first. I mean, that's where you're going to— that's really kind of have to have to start there is look at what their PPE is. You're going to have to have masks. Are you going to require people coming in who have masks? Are you going to provide masks? Uh, we're seeing that question there. So, but you know, the nice thing about doctor's offices, I think you can limit because they're scheduling people Uh, if they're not in emergency room, they're scheduling people, doctors, you know, the, the general practitioners, the dentist, you know, the dermatologist, all those people. Um, you can, uh, you're scheduling people so you can schedule where you can— you, to a certain degree, you're, you're scheduling for social distancing in a way so that you don't have crowds in your thing.

So, so, so one of the things, um, couple things, because I think When I saw, you know, and you and I, we've sat on the SHRM thing years ago and we would banter back and forth.

We're not that old.

We're not that old. But we would banter back and forth about what HR needs to do. So one of the things that is really scary to me right now is we've put people into these respirators and these N95 masks. Most have not been fit tested, which is required, um, and they're, they're all running around wearing these things with their thing on there and they're not fit tested. So what is the guidance for mask wearing? Because I think that is the number one thing that I, that I could see employers getting into trouble for. And then on top of that, the second half of it is the training required for, right, um, the PPE training that employers are not doing and documenting. Let's talk about those two things.

Well, I would say with respect to the N95 respirators, I mean, those, those respirators are probably more best used, needed for where you have high, high exposure to coronavirus. Uh, those are the people that in the emergency rooms, ICUs, and all that stuff, that's what they're using. They're using the face shields and all that stuff. I think with respect to masks, we've been kind of recommending more focused on using dust masks or the cloth masks because they provide— according to the CDC, they provide sufficient protection for your employees and then also for your clients coming in if you're going to be doing that type of thing, those type of things. So, these surgical masks, they're not N95 respirators. They're just the COVID that goes over your face there. I think if we're doing that, even though it's not a voluntary use, if we're requiring it, because we're probably— we are going to require it, you know, as part of our corona response plan. And that's one thing you should really be looking at is having a response plan in place, a written response plan, so you know what you're going to be doing all the way through the whole process. But I think with respect to masks, I think if you're using the dust mask, if you're using cloth masks, then those that do not put, uh, the, the burden on, uh, are not such that you would have to go through the entire, um, uh, doing the pulmonary function testing, doing the questionnaire, the fit testing, and all that other stuff. Those things there, I don't think we need that. But how— what I've seen out of the CDC, it just doesn't see that that's, that's We don't need to have everybody in N95 respirators.

Right. So, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna say this again, so that, 'cause there's a lot of medical people on this call, okay? N95 has a requirement in the OSHA regulations.

Right.

It requires fit testing, it requires PPE training. And so you guys are handing them out like it's cookies. And crackers and candy, you need to do the rest of it. It's not just handing them out. If you have employees on site and you are giving them this and you don't have training— so I'll tell you what happened. I had, uh, what, an attorney called me the other day and they, they got saved from an OSHA inspection because they actually did PPE training with their nurses and ancillary staff before COVID broke out in their facility. So again, You, you, and I've been trying to say this, and Ed, you can probably reiterate this too, COVID-19 didn't take away the rules. The rules still exist even though we're in COVID-19, right?

Well, it is true, and, and, um, and we do have to follow that there. If we, if we are going to be using N95 respirators, we're supposed to be doing the whole thing. Although there was that guidance that came out that talked about you know, when on the inspections and looking to see if employers are making a good faith effort to comply. Now, if you're going to start requiring the wearing of N95 respirators, then part of that reason you— one of the things you're going to have to do— well, I think every employer should be doing this. Unfortunately, even before the pandemic started, that most can probably 70% of the employers in the United States weren't doing it is that you're supposed to be doing under the PPE general standard 1910.151, uh, you're supposed to be doing, um, excuse me, 132. I'm sorry, yeah, 132. You're supposed to do a hazard assessment of the hazards that are associated at your work site that necessitates the use of PPE. And as part of that too, then you're also supposed to have a written certification certification. Like I said, probably 50, 60, 70% of companies in the United States don't have a written certification. You should be doing that. You should be doing a new analysis because now that you have coronavirus, you know, the COVID-19, you do have a new hazard there, and that may necessitate the use of masks or something. So you need to determine what, what masks you're going to be utilizing. And if you are going to be using a respirator or an N95, N95 mask, then you're going to have to go through the whole analysis there and do the things, the training, and have the testing that you need to do. That's kind of why one of the reasons we've kind of moved towards— kind of encouraging the use of dust masks, because that it seems like under the CDC, as I said before, the CDC guide seems to indicate that that's sufficient, that that provides the protection that you need to have. For your employees.

So one of the questions that has been posed both in the chat and in the Q&A— we have a lot of dental offices on the phone and a lot on our webinar today, and a lot of dental hygienists. And so I want to just take 2 seconds and answer the question. Number 1, there was a question about medical malpractice. We can't answer that question. That's not a part of what we're going to check today. Right. We are really talking about respirators and OSHA guidelines and so on. Yes, dental hygienists, it has been said by DOL that you are at high risk for COVID transmission based on the work that you do. But at the same time, Ed, wouldn't you agree that that is still an industry that if your office is open, you still have to provide PPEs for your employees?

Oh, no doubt about it. I don't think that any— to be quite frank, it's going to be very interesting of any business that's going to be, you know, that has dealing with the public that they're not going to be providing providing masks or some type of respirator or mask to their employees as part of their overall response plan to the coronavirus and the startup plan again. So I think you're going to have to— and clearly you're right, those— the dental hygienists have been identified as a high-risk group. And so the good thing is they've always wore masks. They use— most of them, at least my, my dental hygienist, she always has worn a shield, I mean, for the last 10, 10 years, I think. So, and they use gloves. So the, the PPE is in place there, I think. But once again, let's— but we got to still protect it. So how are we going to put— how are we going to make sure we're protecting the dental hygienist from getting COVID-19? Well, first of all, of course, I'm assuming that as part of your overall response plan, you're going to be at least taking temperatures of the employees, your employees coming to work, make sure that they have their— and part of our response plan is also to, as part of the training aspects of the program, is going to be telling people if you're sick, if you're not feeling well, if you have a fever, do not come to work. Because we got, we got two groups of people, we got, we got to protect them from the people, the employees themselves that they're dealing with, their co-workers. Then we got to deal with them, uh, deal with the, um, the, the, uh, the clients coming in, their customers, the client— because client's the best word— coming in for, for having, you know, the dental procedures and stuff like that. I think there we're going to have to, um, we should be probably asking, uh, the questions before they come. I mean, First of all, are you coming? Secondly, if you're planning on coming, do you have a fever? Do you have a cough? Have you been around anybody that has COVID-19 that you know of? Those are the questions we even— we screen before we even bring them in or allow them to come in or schedule them for the cleanings or whatever they're doing, procedures. And then once they get there, I think— I don't know how you're going to get around not at least taking their temperature. Now, the good thing for doctors' offices and dentists and all that, they're all healthcare professionals. And so the CDC has an EEOC— I should be saying it's more the EEOC— has relaxed its regulations with respect to discrimination. On taking temperature. They basically have now said, the EEOC has said that you can take temperatures because the pandemic makes it a business necessity. And so you can take temperatures of your employees coming in here. And then, you know, I think you're going to see people at least asking the questions, do you feel sick? Do you have a fever? Do you mind us taking your temperature? Now, since we're healthcare professionals, we're going to be able to do that. We're going to have the ability to do that. The question— now, the question is on documentation. That you have to be very careful with. There's all kinds of landmines there for— when you start documenting these type of things. So we've been kind of discouraging documentation if you're just taking the temperature and write it down. You don't need to document that. But I think it's good— you want to make sure that the people come into that, they're good, that, you know, the dental hygienists are going to be working on, that they are, as best you can tell, they are— they don't have the COVID-19. Now they may be asymptomatic. I mean, that's one thing of that the testing is showing a lot of, is that there are a lot of asymptomatic persons out there who have no signs of of illness, but unfortunately are able to spread the disease. So we're going to have to be a little as careful as we can be on that. So, and of course, you're going to have to make sure that you have— one of the big things I'm seeing is, you know, this whole intense cleaning, disinfecting, that is going to be critical. And they talk about what if somebody's complaining to— makes a complaint to OSHA, that's one thing you want to be able to talk about there is, oh, not only the PPE, we want to talk about to be able to talk to the OSHA about the PPE. And then, but also we want to talk about our disinfecting program, our cleaning program, you know, how we clean after, before anybody gets to, comes into the room, and into the room that the room's wiped down after the procedure, everything's wiped down, all the tools are sanitized, how they do all that, you know, have a whole, whole procedure and And once again, that's part of your overall response plan. That should be in your response, your written response plan. If you don't have that, you're gonna make mistakes.

Right, right.

Yeah, you gotta work at it.

Yeah, so I have a question from James Wright, posted it in the Q&A. James, thank you for posting the question. He said he's got a security guard company and they're working around the public, and what he wants to do is to ask his employees to wear masks, number one, but he also wants to ask them, have you been exposed, have you been around anyone exposed, and he asked the question, is he required to provide PPEs? So I'm going to answer the last part of that. Yes, you are required to provide PPE. You're the employer. The burden for PPE doesn't lie with the employee. The burden for the PPE lies with the employer. Am I correct, Ed, in saying that?

Yeah, that goes once again to the— that goes to your hazard assessment for PPE. That's your determination. What are your employees— and here, obviously, if they're dealing with the public, they have exposure to the COVID-19. So what is— as part of our hazard assessment, then what are we saying? Well, what is the PPE we need to use? Well, we can't put barriers up. But so we're kind of, you know, for the security guard, I mean, we can maybe some areas, I mean, but for the most part, you're not going to be able to put any type of barrier or anything else like that. So once you are going to have to have some type of mask, they're going to be wearing masks. And so that's going to be part of the— and that's going to be a requirement. And if it's a requirement, then we're required to pay for that requirement under the PPE standard. So, we need to make sure that we— yeah, if we're going to provide that, we can. You know, we can require them. That's part of our, you know, they say maybe they don't want to wear it. Maybe they're sensitized or something like that. Well, once again, once they say that, well, that should— I'm sure for all the HR people out there, they all— all their antennas went right up because once again, we got to talk about here's a possible interest for the ADA Act. For ADA issues. So now we've got to start looking at what type of accommodations can we have? What can— what, uh, you know, can we— are we going to provide cloth masks that instead of— you know, I have, I have a mask that I wear and it itches like heck when I wear it. So I'm thinking I got to go to the cloth mask because that won't be as itchy there. So, or maybe I won't be sensitized, or the person will be. But you will— you do have your, your, your reasonable accommodation type of thing you have to start looking at when that that type of thing occurs. But yes, you can, you can require it now. Um, and, um, you know, one of the people, as you start up the Guard, or as you're starting up too, maybe on the Guard Service or any other thing, you're still going to have— you're going to have people that are going to say they don't want to return to work right now, right? It's just like here, the governor said the malls can be open, and the big mall company that's owns a couple of malls here, said they were going to be opening— I don't know if it was yesterday or whatever. But the question was— there were two questions. The first question was, were any of the stores going to open? You could have the mall open, but doesn't mean any of the stores are going to be open. And then secondly, are the employees going to want to be— are they going to be concerned about coming in? And right now, I think there is a lot of apprehension about employees returning to work at this point in time. They're not exactly sure. Make sure it's really safe for them to go there. So, we got to look at that question very closely. And of course, OSHA, this has— this is where you get into kind of the whistleblower type of things too there or refuse— where employees refuse to come into work because of that. Well, the question must be there is, you know, OSHA has a set requirements on that. You know, is this a reasonable apprehension? You know, can it— can an accommodation kind of be made on those type of things? Those are the type of things you're going to have to be looking at there. Does a normal person— would normal person consider this to be a reasonable apprehension? And right now, I would say people that— if people want— didn't want to return to work at this point in time, that may be— a reasonable person may consider that to be a reasonable concern. Particularly if you're like, you know, me. I'm an old guy. I'm 67. How I have a 7-year-old daughter, we're not— we're still figuring that one out. But anyway, um, you know, I'm in one of those risk groups. I don't believe that because I still think I'm only 35 or 40. I'm not exactly sure where, but anyway, close to that. But, you know, if you're in one of the— if you're over 60, 65, you know, particularly if you have some other health issues, you have emphysema, or if you have any type of heart issue or lung issues and stuff like that, that's clearly going to be— and we're— and employers are going to have to make some accommodations to deal with that. I mean, it may be, you know, we may be letting those people stay at home more. And of course, our overall thing, we're still going to be— look, there's still companies that are going to be looking to continue telecommunicating, uh, you know, their work at home. And that's going to go on for a while yet, I suspect. Actually, I saw— I heard a discussion the other day where there was some thought that a lot of businesses are already starting to look and say, hey, this actually worked a lot better than we thought it was going to work, and we're still getting a lot of work done. Maybe I could— you know, maybe we don't need to have, uh, you know, maybe we cut our, our office space in half and let people work at home, and when they need to come into the office, there'll be a cubicle available for them to use. It may not— it's not going to have their name on it, but it's going to have, you know, all the stuff they need. And so we're going to see some of that. So I think that the telecommunity is going to be moving for a long time, but we need to be careful when people start coming— when we start asking people to come back and they start saying, well, I don't know if I want to come back. That's going to be an issue that we got to be careful because they do have— once they— when they start getting into that area, you got potential whistleblower protection. And so you need to be— make sure that you're following every step properly on dealing with that issue.

Okay, so Ed, a question that got posed in the Q&A is, um, the question was, we have employees that go into someone's home, so they're probably home health aides and they're going into into someone's home. Krista, if you want to clarify that a little bit, you can in the chat. It says, if possible, can we address how we handle someone going into someone else's home? Now, I've got another bunch of people in the other chat who are with our dental offices, and yes, I see you and I see everything that you're posting in the chat. About dental offices. We weren't going to necessarily focus wholly and solely on dental offices, but it seems that there is a big push there. So what I will do, and I promise all of you, um, I will go out and do some really good research on dental offices, and we will do a webinar focused on dental offices. Because I didn't realize how much that was a big hole, um, Ed, until we started getting people registering for the event, and I had a ton of dental office and doctors' offices. So at some point we'll double back in the next week or two and put something together for doctors' offices, because I think that's— it's a big deal. But here is— and let me veer off a tiny bit. I will send out to everyone who participates a webinar that we did on physician and— we did a webinar at the beginning of the month on COVID-19 and compliance. I think some of the information is actually in that webinar, and I will send everyone a link to that. So to the healthcare side, and then after we answer this question, I want to ask you about presumption in the workplace, because I think that all of you are not thinking about that. I know that we want to talk about our specific issues, but let me answer the question about if we send somebody to somebody else's home. How do I protect them in someone else's home?

Well, I think it's once again, we got to do some of pretty much all the things we just were talking about. I mean, I think before you go into, you know, and OSHA is very sensitive to this, you know, there's, you know, they've issued citations against employers who have not focused on employees. These are where people go in and get assaulted, or unfortunately there was one case that a person got killed. And so OSHA issues citations to those employers. So we need to be a little bit focused on that, but once again, I think you, first of all, we're going to have to be calling the person before they go. They need to be called, whoever the client is. If you're going to their home, you need to call them and ask them the questions, you know, but the questions are even more expanded, I think, in this particular case because you're asking them If you have a fever, or have you been coughing, do you feel ill? Is there anybody in your household there that has felt, you know, has been, have a temperature or feeling ill? Has anyone in your, in, in, have you, anyone in your family, anyone in the household there, have they been tested, have a test, positive test for COVID-19? Have Have they been— has any of you or anybody in your household there, uh, that they've been exposed to anybody outside the home that has COVID-19? I think we have to ask those questions before they even go to the house. I mean, I just don't— I don't see that it happens there. So, uh, of course, if they're going to the house, I'm assuming they are, um, they're going there for some type of Well, I'm not sure, I guess they could be bringing food to the shelter, the people that are stuck at home, or— but I'm expecting that they're doing a little bit more and more nurse care, stuff like that. Well, obviously they're going to be taking— part of the protocol is going to be they're going to be taking that person's temperature, they're going to be looking at their vital signs, they're going to be able to see that. When they see— if they see the warning signs, and of course they're going to have the full PPE on there, you know, I think they're going to have to have the gloves on before they come in now. They're going to have the mask on. They probably should probably have the safety glasses on there. And so, and maybe even if you're going in there, if you're not sure, wearing some type of gown or something that they can take off once they're finished before they get back in their car, because we obviously want to protect all that and have a protocol. Once again, I keep going back to our response plan, but we've got to have a plan. And part of that response plan is saying, here's how you— here's what you— here's the— here's the questions you're going to ask before you show up. You know, when you get there, you're going to ask them some additional questions to make sure. But before you go, even go into the door, you're going to put on your gloves, you're going to put on your respirator, you're going to put on your safety glasses, and maybe even put on your— some type of covering. And when you're finished, when you leave the space, before you get in your car, you know, have a— leave a bag outside your car door when you, when you get out to go in, have it there, take everything off, roll it all up, stick it in the bag, and put it in your trunk. And those are the type of protocols you're going to really have to have in order to that. But, and then once they see that in their side and they're doing— they If the warning flags are up, then you need to make that recommendation that they see a physician right away.

So one of the things I think the main point that I'm getting from Ed and for everyone on this webinar is this. You've got to walk the employee's life cycle in your organization or your company or your hair salon or nail salon or dental office. You have to walk the lifecycle both for your employees and for your customers, your clientele. So where are my exposure points? And, and Ed's brought this up a couple times about the COVID-19 response plan. And I think we will do a webinar on that. Just talking that through, because I don't think most small offices didn't have a safety plan to begin with, number one. And now you come COVID-19, and you guys are being asked to bend like a pretzel or bend like— you're bending all over the place now. And you didn't have adequate plans before. Yes, dental offices are high risk. Somebody keeps asking that. Yes, we're aware of that. But in terms of the risk factors that were listed, dental offices are on the list, risk factor. But they made hospitals the highest risk in terms of COVID-19. And, but now we're finding out all these other areas like meatpacking and so on and so forth is also high-risk places. So in terms of this pandemic, we're all at risk. Let's be honest. You don't know where this is coming from. So as employers, we have to go back to our core. What am I doing to protect the employee? What am I doing to protect our client and customers and people we serve? And what are the policies I have to put in place? There is a couple questions about KN95 respirators versus N95 respirators. Can you speak a little bit to that, Ed? Is—

yeah, I think for the most part they're fairly similar. I mean, the KN95s are coming out of China. They have a different testing procedure, and I think that's part of what it is. But I think it's fair— I've been told that they're fairly similar in that the and mask are fairly similar. So I don't know that— but there has always been a concern. I mean, you know, in the past, there's been a lot of problems with things coming from China not being up to the specs that they need to be up to, or they have— or they're adulterated or whatever it is. So I think that's one thing that, you know, you do have to be a little bit concerned about. But I think they're— as I understand, I've been told that they're process, their testing is a little different, and that's why there's some concern. But, uh, but for the most part, they're similar, a fairly similar mass.

So, okay, so, so let's, let's move on a little bit from, from this part of it, because I think there's a big thing. And Ed, if you don't mind, I'd love if we could run over a little bit in terms of our time and just really— yeah, we're good— answer these questions. Um, what I, what I want to, um, what I want to ask you about is, um, presumptions. Now, one of the things that we're getting on the workers' comp side, which a lot of, of people aren't thinking about, I don't think, in general, is how did the employee contract COVID-19? And if I get a complaint from OSHA about COVID-19, um, Then what?

Well, uh, yeah, well, on a record-keeping issue, and then, and OSHA did issue a guidance or document on, on, on the, on record keeping about, uh, the presumption, because under the, under the OSHA record-keeping standard, there's the presumption that if somebody gets sick and they're at work somehow, or they've been at work, that, that there's a presumption that it's work-related. And so, um, and I, and I, I'm sure the reason why OSHA came out with this guidance, which now says, well, we're not going to— we're going to ease up on that presumption of work-relatedness except for healthcare and nursing homes. And there was one other group there that they said, we're not— we're not, we're not going to get that presumption. We're going to stick to the presumption it's work-related. We're not going to ease that thing. But there was an easement on that. So the thing about— so you're seeing more of this, the OSHA basically saying, okay, and the reason they did this is because they were being inundated. They were getting, you know, they realized that all these people that are going, you know, hundreds of thousands of people that have contracted the virus, a lot of them were going to hospitals and they weren't coming back to work for a long period of time. That was going to skew the 300-log data and the injury and illness data and the DART rate data. That was going to skew it tremendously. And I think that's primarily the reason why they decided to kind of relax that presumption because, to be quite honest, you know, I had a case where an employee got sick and died, unfortunately., and there was, uh, the question was, is this a work-related fatality or not? Because they can— they, uh, they were, uh, Corona, uh, they received— had to— they died of coronavirus. And the answer, I think, was we, we couldn't find anyone that had been in contact— that person had been kind of— that had, that had the coronavirus. That person came from a town in a county that has the highest coronavirus cases in the whole state. So we looked at that as a presumption that, okay, based on this relaxed presumption that, that, that this, this is not— we can't say that this is work-related. And that's why I think OSHA went that way, because they didn't want to skew the, the injury and illness data numbers, uh, so badly that they become ineffective, uh, and not being able to tell who was a good employer or not. Which employer had a great safety program or didn't have a good safety program, because, you know, one coronavirus case, you could, you know, you could be out 100 days, and that's going to skew your numbers so badly that you'll look like you have a terrible safety record. So I think they went that route. So now I will say this too, if you— and this question has come up, I've been dealing with this question for over a month with different clients, uh, and it had even been in the healthcare area I was dealing with this question, uh, is when you have an employee, and this really only deals with the feds, well, and maybe some of the state plans, because you have to look at the statutes. But the statute in the federal recordkeeping standard about reporting hospitalizations, because, you know, generally all employers, even if you're exempt from the recordkeeping, 300 recordkeeping requirements, you still have the reporting requirements. That you had to report a work-related fatality within 8 hours, you had to report a hospitalization of one or more employees within 24 hours, an amputation within 24 hours, and the loss of an eye— physical loss of an eye within 24 hours. And I've been doing this for— since 1980. I've never had a physical loss of an eye, so I don't know where that all came from, but it's in there. Um, but so the question becomes Well, we have a hospitalization from corona, uh, from the coronavirus. Person is hospitalized. Well, but if you read the standard, the OSHA recordkeeping standard for reporting, it says that you have to report a hospitalization if it occurs within 24 hours of the incident. Now, there are some state plans that have different language, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So you need to be a little bit careful about that. But our— my, my my recommendation or advice to the clients has been, if you got somebody that's hospitalized for coronavirus, they— the 24 hours, they did not contract it, or they weren't— didn't get exposed and contracted the illness within the last 24 hours. When they're hospitalized, they've had it for probably 1 or 2 weeks. And so there was— if you read, read the standard, that's how I read that standard. And so we were recommended don't contact OSHA if they had— if it had— if you have a hospitalization for coronavirus, because under at least federal OSHA, I don't think the standard would apply. I think it's beyond— we're way beyond the 24 hours that you're required to report for hospitalization. Now, on fatalities, we're talking about a little different thing. Happening here now. The rule there says that you have to report a hospital— a fatality if it occurred within 30 days, I believe it is, of the incident. So that more likely is that you're going to have to report a work-related— once again now, it's work-related, and they've said— OSHA said in their guidance, we're easing this, we're easing the standard with respect on work-relatedness as to that presumption. So you have to— you do have some leeway there. So if it's— this is really a truly a work-related fatality, then you would have to call OSHA, assuming that the person died within 30 days of contracting it. So which, once again, it's going to be a little bit hard.

So I— so here's been my dilemma. Um, And I've had the call a couple times. If a person— so if I'm in a nursing home, let's say, because this is where it happened. If I'm in a nursing home and a nurse tests positive for COVID-19, I mean, this is the exact scenario. The nursing home had a nurse test positive for COVID-19. Then a week and a half later, patients started testing positive for COVID-19. Um, now you have more healthcare practitioners testing positive for COVID-19, right? Um, so the original source was the first nurse manager that came in the door. Okay, right now this particular employer did training and did a bunch of things beforehand. Where do I put on my OSHA log these people that have now tested positive, these sub-employees?

Not the first person, because the first person is not, you know, it's not work-related.

Right, the first person is not work-related because we assume that that person got it from somewhere else, because at that point no patient and no employee had tested positive at that point. So the first person, I am going to say from a workers' comp standpoint even, is not work-related. At least it may be work-related, but not to the employer I was talking to, right?

Well, looking, uh, you always got to remember though, from, uh, with respect to workers' comp and OSHA recordkeeping, that those are two separate items.

Two separate items. Exactly.

So you never— just because it's, just because it's a workers' comp case does not necessarily mean that it's going to be recordable under OSHA recordkeeping. Now, the other way is probably not true. If it's, if it's, if it's recordable under OSHA recordkeeping, then it probably is a work— it's probably going to be a workers' comp case, right? Um, so, um, But my— once again, I think that what OSHA is saying, unless you're in healthcare— if you're in healthcare, I think, I think the presumption's there. You're going to have a hard time getting beyond that. So in the nursing homes, I think they, I think they got a— there's a presumption that it is work-related, and therefore they would have to post, put it on their logs.

Um, so it goes on the regular log, or does it go on the SHARPS log? Which log does it go on? Because it's Regular log. Okay.

Yeah.

And are you removing the person's name from the log because of confidentiality, or are you keeping their name on the log? Are you giving them the number, or you— because, because here is, here's the thing that I—

hold on, now this I gotta look up.

I mean, right, because the, the issue becomes the confidentiality, because you still have— there's now a an increased HIPAA requirement when it comes to a person testing positive and putting them on the OSHA Log.

Yeah, I just— hold on, I gotta look, I gotta find the privacy section.

Privacy, privacy. While you're looking that up, Ed, I'm gonna answer a couple questions in the chat. People who are asking about the KN95 versus the N95, It's really the same mask. If I understand it right, 3M owns the branding N95, and it cannot be used outside of the United States. So the KN95 is an N95 respirator, which requires a fit test, which requires PPE training. I think that— I want to dispel that. I think if you are giving something to an employee that is beyond a dust mask, there is PPE training required. Number one, um, the next question that is in there, um, you know, yes, employers should be giving out masks, but if your local municipal, your local district, your local state government says no masks required— because here's what happened: Ohio put in a mask rule, then they took it out, right? So what I'm saying to all of you on this, I understand that You're confused. We as the professionals are confused every day. Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you, because I'll wake up in the morning, there'll be a set of rules. A governor will make a decision in that state or that jurisdiction. There's another set of rules within a city or municipal government. The city manager or the mayor may make a decision that's applicable to the city, the walls of that city. So it— this is fluid. You guys are going to have to stay on top of it for your industry. For all of my dental offices on the call, your trade association needs to be guiding you. Your trade association needs to be putting together programs to advise you on what to do. Um, there is lots of information on the CDC website, on the OSHA website. There is, um, the National Institute of Health has put out some stuff. We've got to go out and figure that out. For the larger companies who have HR directors, Ed and I sat on the special expertise panel for a number of years, and we used to feel like we're beating our head up against the wall because HR needed to learn about safety and occupational health. And every time you say that to HR people, they go, "Huh?" And they have this weird look. Now is when that's important. So yes, this is going to be confusing. But I think what we are trying to do with today's call is just give you some ideas that you may not have thought about. Okay? And a lot of you aren't thinking about ADA compliance with the mask. If I give an employee a mask and the employee says, "This is making me sick." I'll give you an example. I had a bunch of dust masks that I bought in Home Depot. I started wearing them every time I go out. I came back sick because— something in that mask was aggravating my allergies. And so I would come home and think, dear God, did I go to the supermarket and come back with COVID-19? And I started to realize, oh crap, it's this mask I keep putting on. It seems like I'm allergic to whatever's in that mask. So we're gonna have to be conscious about things that we may not be conscious about right now. Um, anyway, oh, back to you and the Osha log, Ed.

All right, the privacy— I mean, this is under, uh, under the form section 1904.29, uh, B7, or, well, B6 and 7, they start talking about it. But they list the privacy things that are considered privacy, and one of them, uh, is HIV infection, hepatitis, or tuberculosis. Now that's not COVID-19, but I think that's close. And then But then it has the catch-all, which is other illnesses. Employee— if an employee voluntarily requests that his or her name not be entered on the log, then we don't have— that would be a privacy concern, but they would go on our privacy log. I mean, it would be listed, but on the 300 logs, that person's name would not be listed.

Okay.

So, um, and like I say, once again, the question that we're going to have to make the first determination is, is this actually work-related or not. So, um, you know, it, it could be, you know, I, I think in a lot of cases nowadays it's, it's not going to be necessarily work-related because of the community, uh, community spread of it there. So, but I think under, under the other, the guidance that OSHA has given us on the record keeping is you have to look at that and see, is there any way that you— is there evidence to show that he he or she actually did contract it at work really is, and it's, it's not. So the questions— this is the questions I'm asking my clients when I get this question. I said, well, has anybody else— who else in the area has, has, uh, or who has that person had contact with, first of all? And we have had situations where that person that has the coronavirus, uh, hasn't had any other contact. Well, that's then then we're not— I'm thinking that's not work-related. You know, if they're— if we have them all in PPE, and this was one of the cases I just had yesterday, if they're in PPE, they're following the procedures, they got— they're being tested, you know, all the employees are being— having their temperature tested. In this particular company, they actually tested every one of their employees for COVID-19. They got tests. I don't know where they got them, but they got them. And, um, uh, and so we were able to look there and say, well, we're doing all these things, we're making sure that no one has— as best we can tell, no one has it. Now, the tests came back and showed that there were a number of people that had it, uh, you know, that they were— most— half of them, over half of them were asymptomatic. So they didn't know, even with no temperature, they didn't— they had— they couldn't— they didn't realize that. So, um, but once again, we're looking at the question, if if somebody, even though we have other people, you know, even in the nursing home, let's just say take the nursing home, sorry, you know, they have wards, they have different areas that they're assigned to. If they don't have any covert cases in that area, then, you know, and then you also need to look too as any of their family members come down with it. Those are kind of questions you're going to have to get. It's kind of, you have to be a little bit careful because of the privacy issues, but we really need to find out because we're going to be doing tracing. If we're going to be tracing, we're going to have to ask those questions to be able to help us find out. So we need to know, is there someone at your home that has— they recently tested positive? If they have, then to me I think that might be a good— even though you have other cases at the work site, if someone at home has tested positive, uh, you know, it makes a little bit— I think it's harder to be able to say that this is work-related.

So, um, couple questions. The, the, the, um, contact tracing. So let's say an employee tests positive in your workforce. Um, what, what, what can we do in terms of contact tracing or in terms of asking questions?

And, um, I think we can ask them who have they been at, who have they been working around. Who are they in the last week or whatever it's going to be, you know, I think, or even the last couple weeks? Who have you been working around here at the thing? Because I think you have a responsibility once you find that one of your employees has been tested positive for COVID-19 that you're going to have to notify the employees at the plan. I don't think you can get around that. I think it's good employee relations anyway. You want to look like you're being upfront on issuing, uh, or letting them know what's going on there. Uh, and then of course, um, you know, they're going to be sent home, or depending on the severity, but they're probably going to be sent to the healthcare professional to make a determination. And, uh, and then determine when, you know, obviously they're not coming back until we know that they get a clean bill of health, you know. And that's something that if It's also going to be interesting as you start re— starting up businesses that have been closed. There's going to be questions about, are we going to have to do fitness for duty tests? I mean, people have been out for a month, a month and a half, 2 months, you know. You know, I, I'm— it's been really weird. I've been out, you know, I've lost almost 20 pounds. I'm not sure why, but I have lost 20 pounds. But I understand most people are adding 20 pounds because they're just sitting sitting around, right, sitting around and eating popcorn or potato chips or whatever. And so, you know, so in that respect, this, this has been— being home has actually been a positive. But well, and being home with my daughter, that's another positive. But anyway, yeah, but those are the issues I think we got to look at.

So, so, Ed, I have a couple final questions as we sort of wrap, and then we'll debrief and figure out what we're going to do next, because this has been pretty— Our chat has been pretty active, so I want to just revisit for a second the OSHA log. Mary asked a question about the OSHA log. My concern was the privacy. So basically the rule, the HIPAA rule is put a number or put a name. What was it? Put a number or put a name.

Yeah, well, I think you have— I think it's, you know, Remember, they had in the, in the record-keeping standard, there was a section, but there's a section that talks about just having here, if you have any of these things, it's not recordable because, you know, they're, they're visitors at the site, they're, they're, they're injured while playing sports after, you know, they're the company, they're on the company softball team and they get injured. And there was another thing that talked about this, and they were talking about that you, if it was the flu or something, that that would not, if they contracted the flu at work, you want it. But they said, but then they talked about the, uh, I'm trying to remember which one, what they said about, but it was another one. They said you gotta, that, that was not, that was not exempt. And I think there, I think, and, and the fact that you had that other illnesses, you could I think you can make the— I think you can say that, yeah, this falls under the HIV and tuberculosis. This is all that type of thing that I think you could make an argument that this is a privacy case, and then we're going to put them on the privacy logs. Or we can ask, do you prefer— do you wish— we're happy to put it on the, you know, if the employee asks, or we can ask the employee, do you wish this to be not have your name on the 300 logs and keep it as a privacy case. Yeah, to me, either way you're going to be—

so yeah, and that's, that's been sort of my thing. I'd rather err on the side of caution and not create another thing where the employee says I violated the HIPAA guidelines. What we are talking about, ladies and gentlemen, is the OSHA logs. And if a person tests positive in your workplace, do I add them to the OSHA log? And do I put their name there or do I put an employee number that doesn't identify who the person is? And it's going to be, as Ed said, you're gonna have to ask the person, number one, and number two, there were already guidelines. So I know COVID-19 has come out of nowhere, but there were already guidelines around, as Ed said, tuberculosis exposures in the workplace. If somebody got exposed to blood or got exposed exposed to something else that was already there. I have a question from someone in Texas that says, you know, the Texas governor said that dental offices are mandated to use N95 or KN95, but their employer is refusing to provide them with the N95. What do you do? So if the state says you must have this, He must have this thing, and the employer says, I don't think I'm giving you that. What, what, what do you do in that situation? And, and if employers are on this call, um, do you get to have that willy-nilly answer of, I don't think I want to do that, right?

Because it costs money, right? You know, if there's— and that kind of where we started at in the whole discussion here, we said I must mention, if there's a state law or ordinance or a state executive order or ordinance that's been passed by the county or something like that, you've got to follow those. You know, it's not just something you can just ignore and say, I'm just going to take my chances because, you know, and, you know, once again, I just don't see how any employer— if first of all, you need to know what the laws are so you're not violating them and putting yourself in jeopardy from a legal standpoint. But secondly, you need to be protecting your employees. And I don't— you know, when it's all said and done, you know, if you don't protect your employees, guess what? This disease is such, if you don't protect them, they're going to get it. If you particularly, you know, if they're, you know, in a healthcare nursing home type of thing, if you're not going to protect them, they're going to get it and they're not going to be there and it's going to cost you more money. So a lot more money. And, uh, and then OSHA is going to come in there if you're not providing it. And there's an ordinance, man, that makes it easier for OSHA to go under the general duty clause because they can say, here was a state statute or a state order or a county order that said you had to provide those and you didn't provide them. We're going to cite you under the general duty clause. And because— and then they're going to say, well, you know, and they're going to look at this and they may say, well, you knew about this. I mean, you just ignored it. That's willful, and therefore we're going to be hitting you with $134,000 penalty. Just one citation for $134,000. Well, you know what, you can buy a heck of a lot of respirators or N95 respirators for $134,000. My brother just bought— he's up in Pennsylvania, he heads up a credit union up there, and he bought $50,000. He had a He had some contact over in China, I don't know where, but anyway, he was able to get 50,000, uh, their respirators and similar in '95, uh, shipped over to the United States, and he gave— they gave them away to all the hospitals in the Philadelphia area. So, um, you know, but people, you know, they're out there now. It's not that it wasn't there, there was a problem, there's— it's still some of a shortage, but for the most part, you go online, you can see it, you know, they're out there. You can buy them if you need to. You're going to pay more money. So my wife too, I went to, I forget where I was at, when I went somewhere and I bought a, there was some bottle that had hand sanitizers in a small little bottle, one that big. And I should have known it because the lady said, the sales lady says, well, you know, those are, that's $10 for a small bottle of hand sanitizer. I said, Well, we don't have much hands, so I better get some. I took it home. My wife said, I'm taking that back. That's outrageous. So, but— so unfortunately, you have people out there that are doing these things, but I think you got to— in the long run, you got to take care of your employees. And this is not something you can just ignore, especially for PPE. You got to protect your employees or they're not going to be there. And guess what? If all your employees get sick and they're out, who's going to run your business? Nobody.

So, right. And that's it. And, you know, one of the things that, um, you know, I end up at night, I feel like consuming and filling my brain up with more stuff every night. Last night it was like 1:30 in the morning when I closed the iPad and said, okay, enough. Um, I was looking at some articles around ancillary, um, individuals, especially in hospitals, who have, who have died because we didn't think they could get COVID. So for example, the person handing out the PPE at several hospitals have actually, have actually died from COVID-19 because they were handing people all their, their only job was handing PPEs to healthcare workers. That was their only job. And they ended up contracting COVID-19 and dying. So what I'm saying to all of you is don't assume that A person can't get this in your company or in your office or at your dental office. You have to practice good guidance, meaning, as Ed said, people need to— you need to call ahead. Do you have this? I was— we did a— one of my key partners is Physicians Health Center in Miami, and we did a program on telemedicine. And we talked it through. And one of the things that we said is if people are coming in, because like the airline industry, the FAA is still requiring pilots and flight attendants to come in for their physicals. That didn't go away. DOT is still— they've extended the time, but they're asking for physicals and things to be done. So if an employee comes into their office, they're saying, no, no, no, we're going to ask you the question. You're going to wait in your car. We're going to be suited up when we're doing the evaluation of you. And then you're going to wear a mask until you can't. I know in a dental office you can't, um, not wear a mask. The patient has to be unmasked in order for you to work in their mouth. So, so there it is. But we, we have to, um, use common sense around what we're doing, even if the regulation is vague and loosey-goosey and anything else that's going on right now. So, Ed, as we wrap up, what do you want to leave with everybody on our our webinar today? Tell me.

Well, I think there's a lot there. Unfortunately, you know, I started out talking about the OSHA guidance, CDC guidance. Be aware of that information because it's out there. It's very important. Um, uh, protect your employees. I mean, put together— you've got to have your corona response plan. You got to have that. I mean, it's just— you can write it. It has to be written down because you won't know what you got. And it gives you an opportunity to think of all the things, to think of all the steps. There's always little steps that you might not even think about. I'll give you just one. If you're renting an office building, if you're renting an office building, one of the things you might be asking your landlord is, can you increase the amount of airflow that is coming in? Now that's gonna cost money to him, that landlord, because particularly during the summertime, you're, you know, it's hot air, you're increasing air, so they have to cool hot air. But the more airflow you get, the less likely that the virus is going to be transmitted. It's going to be moved out faster that way. So that's just one little thing that you need to be putting into your coronavirus response plan. But ask to have the questions. Spell out the questions so everybody knows, here's what we're going to ask. Here's our receptionist. Maybe if we have a receptionist, you know, pretty much Maybe we need to put some plexiglass stuff up there. You know, that's not expensive at all. I mean, plexiglass is very cheap, although right now maybe there's a run on it. I don't know. But those are the type of things that we need to do, all those things to protect the employees because you don't want your employees to get sick because especially if you're trying to get started back up, which the doctor, Dennis, Dr. Swartz, Dennis, for sure. Some of the others were— or continue to get to work. But you still— you don't— you want to get that— you want to make sure— get them back in and protect them. Make sure that they're healthy. Hopefully they haven't contracted disease while they've been on this hiatus. And do those type of things. So there's just— like a lot said, I think do yourself a favor and get that response plan put together. So you can have everything there and you're going to know exactly what you're going to do and we're going to be able to train off of that. That's the other thing, train about, uh, about the, uh, all what you're doing and that's real and that's going to save you from getting whistleblower claims. If you're doing all this stuff and you're telling your employees here's all the stuff we're protecting about, they're not be— they're going to be disinclined, they're not going to be— there's no inclination to be filing a whistleblower claim with OSHA. Or file a complaint, an informal complaint. I mean, no matter what you do, either one, they're going to take your time. So those are things I just would say. This is, uh, uh, the more we can do this, the better we can get this thing out, hopefully get this thing knocked out. You know, I'm hoping they're going to have a vaccination come the end of the year, and so that if it comes back, we're going to be in a lot better shape. So But anyway, just the most important thing is stay safe and stay healthy.

Right. Daniel, thank you for posting all your questions in the chat, and I have seen them, and I apologize I didn't get to answer all of your questions. But here, let me sum up for you. I think you're in a— if I'm not mistaken, you were in servicing people in their home, I think, if I'm not mistaken. I think I saw. Yeah, if I'm wrong, sort of ignore me, but you can ask questions of your employees, you can ask questions of your clientele. If you are sending an employee into someone else's home, for example, you can ask, has anybody in that home been exposed to coronavirus? I'm sending my employees in. You know, it's simple. You know, there was— there's a painter's zip-up that painters wear that covers your head and zip you into it and you've got the little booties and all that. You can pretty much find those online and you can find those in Home Depot and a bunch of other places. So sometimes we have to improvise what we give to our employees, but we do need to protect them when they're in someone else's home. At the end of the day, I'll give you my example. I have a leaky toilet right now. I could call my plumber, but I refuse to do that. The number one reason, my 91-year-old dad lives with me. So I've gone into that bathroom and cut the water off to it and said, it's a wrap. This will happen at another time. I don't want anyone in my home. So we— and but you can't make that decision as an employer to say, I can't send somebody into this particular home. Um, if you're sending folks out, you've got to ask questions of your customers And if they want the service, they will answer the question. We've got to just be prudent in what we're doing. And I know we're getting a lot of questions about N95. Yes, there is an N95 regulation. Please go to the OSHA website, search N95. It will give you the list of regulations around PPE and fit testing and everything else required for N95s. Just because we're in coronavirus circles file does not mean that the regulation has gone away. Yes, the regulations can be confusing, and we know that. So I want to thank all of you for, you know, participating in today's webinar. I hope that we answered as many of your questions as we could. I, you know, we— I will double back through a lot of these questions and sort of double back through and say, you know, what, what do we need to answer? For a lot of the questions that we had, we are doing this multi-state workers' comp and defense and plaintiff attorney roundtable on, on, on May 7th, which is on, on Thursday. I will send a link out for everyone on this call. We do need to get an additional layer around workers' comp, around HR policies, This webinar will answer that question. And then a lot of things that Ed brought up about the ADA accommodation, we are going to cover that on May 12th. These are some of the things that we're not all thinking about. We do have to look at an employee asking for accommodation based on even wearing a mask or based on wearing a face shield, and maybe they have some underlying condition that we're not thinking about. So we do need to answer that. So I want to thank you, Ed, for doing this with me. It has been a pleasure. I'm sure out of this has come a bunch of other things, and we'll have to talk through that. WorkCompSeminars.com is my website. We are going live with the site. We're actually redoing the site right now. It will go live on Friday. I have a YouTube link with a lot of the videos, and the video will be on there, and everyone participating today will get a link to watch this webinar again. So thank you, Ed.

Can we, can we send, can we send out a— I have a back to business checklist. Yes, we can send that out to everybody.

We can send that out to everybody. Yeah, so we'll definitely send out that back to business checklist, and we'll send that out to everybody, and I'll get that out by tomorrow.

Yeah, our firm has put that together. We've been very active. We've had one of the most active— we have a website on our Fisher-Phillips website. We have probably one of the most active coronavirus sites in the country. So, okay, yeah, that was— I was told we had— we had Google sent us an email or sent us some discussion, said we had something like 540 million hits on our website.

Wow, wow, that's a lot. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot for sure. Yeah, yeah. Okay, all right, well, thank you so much, Ed. Yes, thank you, and, and, um, and it's, it's been a pleasure, and we'll do this again.

Great, look forward to it.

Take care.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.