OSHA Issues Enforcement Guidance for Recording Cases of COVID-19

National Construction Practice Safety Alert

Under OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements, COVID-19 is a recordable illness and employers are responsible for recording cases of COVID-19 on the OSHA 300Log of Work Related Injuries and Illnesses. However, in areas where there is ongoing community transmission, employers other than those in the healthcare industry, emergency response organizations and correctional institutions may have difficulty making determinations about whether workers who contracted COVID-19 did so due to exposures at work. In light of these difficulties, OSHA is exercising enforcement discretion.

Objective Evidence

OSHA has suspended injury and fatality reporting requirements related to COVID-19 for employers outside of the healthcare industry (and the other industries listed above) unless there is objective evidence that the COVID-19 related injury or fatality is work-related and the evidence was reasonably available to the employer.

Objective evidence would include a “cluster” of cases that emerge among workers in close proximity without an alternative explanation. For employers, this new policy will help them focus their response efforts on implementing good hygiene practices in their workplaces, and otherwise mitigating COVID-19’s effects, rather than on making difficult work-relatedness decisions in circumstances where there is community transmission.

See the entire memo at: www.osha.gov/memos

For more of EPIC’s coronavirus coverage, visit epicbrokers.com/coronavirus