OSHA Revises Guidance for Recording COVID-19 Cases

National Construction Practice Safety Alert

Announced in a May 19 press release, the new enforcement policy overrides an April 10 guidance memo that required only employers in the healthcare industry, emergency response organizations and correctional institutions to make work-related determinations of COVID-19 cases. All other employers were exempt except in cases in which “objective evidence” existed that a COVID-19 infection was work-related or the evidence was “reasonably available” to the employer.

The memorandum for regional administrators and state plan designees provides updated interim guidance with respect to the recording of occupational illnesses, specifically cases of COVID-19. The new guidance takes effect on Monday, May 26 and will remain in effect until further notice. The guidance is intended to be time-limited to the current COVID-19 public health crisis.

Under OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements, COVID-19 is a recordable illness, and thus employers are responsible for recording cases of COVID-19, if:

1. The case is a confirmed case of COVID-19, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
2. The case is work-related as defined by 29 CFR § 1904.5; and
3. The case involves one or more of the general recording criteria set forth in 29 CFR § 1904.7.

OSHA is exercising its enforcement discretion in order to provide certainty to employers and workers. Accordingly, until further notice, OSHA will enforce the recordkeeping requirements of 29 CFR 1904 for employee COVID-19 illnesses for all employers according to the guidelines below.

However, given the nature of the disease and ubiquity of community spread, in many instances it remains difficult to determine whether a COVID-19 illness is work-related, especially when an employee has experienced potential exposure both in and out of the workplace. Because of the difficulty with determining work-relatedness, OSHA will continue to exercise enforcement discretion to assess employers’ efforts in making work-related determinations.

In determining whether an employer has complied with this obligation and made a reasonable determination of work-relatedness, Compliance Safety and Health Officers (CSHO’s) should apply the following considerations:

• The reasonableness of the employer’s investigation into work-relatedness.
• The evidence available to the employer.
• The evidence that a COVID-19 illness was contracted at work.

Certain types of evidence may weigh in favor of or against work-relatedness. For instance:

• • COVID-19 illnesses are likely work-related when several cases develop among workers who work closely together and there is no alternative explanation.
  • An employee’s COVID-19 illness is likely work-related if it is contracted shortly after lengthy, close exposure to a particular customer or coworker who has a confirmed case of COVID-19 and there is no alternative explanation.
  • An employee’s COVID-19 illness is likely work-related if his job duties include having frequent, close exposure to the general public in a locality with ongoing community transmission and there is no alternative explanation.
  • An employee’s COVID-19 illness is likely not work-related if he/she is the only worker to contract COVID-19 in her vicinity and her job duties do not include having frequent contact with the general public, regardless of the rate of community spread.
  • An employee’s COVID-19 illness is likely not work-related if he/she, outside the workplace, closely and frequently associates with someone (e.g., a family member, significant other, or close friend) who (1) has COVID-19; (2) is not a coworker, and (3) exposes the employee during the period in which the individual is likely infectious.
  • CSHOs should give due weight to any evidence of causation, pertaining to the employee illness, at issue provided by medical providers, public health authorities, or the employee herself.

If, after the reasonable and good faith inquiry described above, the employer cannot determine whether it is more likely than not that exposure in the workplace played a causal role with respect to a particular case of COVID-19, the employer does not need to record that COVID-19 illness. In all events, it is important as a matter of worker health and safety, as well as public health, for an employer to examine COVID-19 cases among workers and respond appropriately to protect workers, regardless of whether a case is ultimately determined to be work-related.

Read the entire memorandum

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