Includes employer, employee duties, hazard controls
Alberta Occupational Health and Safety has issued a bulletin that gives employers, supervisors and workers information about minimizing risk from respiratory viruses in the workplace.
“Outbreaks of new respiratory viruses can happen in any season. Most of the time, these start in other parts of the world — often, from animal viruses that have mutated first so that they can infect people, and then further mutate to spread from person to person,” the government said. “The new viruses spread across regions and internationally when infected individuals travel.”
The bulletin notes that respiratory viruses can spread directly — through coughing, sneezing or handshaking — or indirectly — through contact with contaminated surfaces, tissues, cloth or paper. It also reminds employers to perform a hazard assessment to identify existing and potential hazards at a work site, and eliminate those hazards.
Hazards can be eliminated through the use of engineering controls, administrative controls and personal protective equipment.
“In all cases, employers must evaluate the effectiveness of their control measures, and review and revise hazard assessments as needed to prevent the development of unsafe or unhealthy working conditions,” said the bulletin.
Employers must also have first aid and emergency response services in place and be up to date on the best practices. They should consider how a sick employee can affect the entire workplace, whether that employee must be isolated or be assigned to work from home so as not to spread the virus. Personal care and hygiene are also important.
Should there be an outbreak of a virus, employers, supervisors and workers should check and follow all advice provided by public health officials, the bulletin added.
