Naomi Bar-Yam, Chen Shen and Yaneer Bar-Yam

Employers that are striving to protect their customers and employees, especially those who are providing essential services during a lockdown, should engage with employees to determine their risks of becoming infected in order to protect them individually and collectively. This may contribute to evaluation of how to organize work spaces and identify which employees serve in roles that require contact where it is necessary. This is particularly relevant to essential services such as supermarkets, pharmacies, groceries, and health care providers as well as high risk institutions such as retirement communities, dormitories, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, psychiatric wards, and prisons. It is more generally relevant to any corporation that strives to protect its employees, whether they are working from home or idle until the activities are restored. 

General guidelines for organizations include:

• Maximize work from home to enable self-isolation and promote Safe Spaces.

• Maintain essential functions and reduce impact on all functions using Safe Space workspaces.

Extending safety practices to individual employees decreases their own risk and the impact on the organization. Reaching out to see how safe their environment is outside of work becomes essential to the safety of the workplace and how sustainable their contribution will be during and after this critical time. Their safe environment includes potential historical exposures during the most recent 14 day period. Actions that can be taken include

• Encouraging individuals to implement Safe Space practices including isolation from others who are at risk. 

• Encouraging individuals to maintain healthy activities to reduce their risk factors. 

• Where exposure has happened, arrange for safe 14 day self-isolation to ensure that they are not infected, or if symptoms arise.

• Where risks are high, to arrange for separate housing for employees who are currently well to avoid becoming infected from, or infecting, roommates or family members over a 14 day period.

  • Especially for employees in high risk institutions.

  • Especially where they are living with roommates or family members at risk of becoming infected (e.g. because they have been or are working in non-safe space workplaces)

  • Especially where they are living with roommates or family members that are elderly or have pre-existing health issues that make adverse outcomes more likely.

  • Especially if the employee is in a high risk professions, e.g. health care and other hospital workers, and essential high contact service employees in supermarkets, groceries and pharmacies.

Safety Screening Questions for Employers

Here is a list of useful questions to begin to determine their level of risk:

1.) Where do you live?

a.) Private home, duplex, apartment
b.) Do you have a separate entrance?

i.) Common door / lobby
ii.)Elevator

2.) How many people are in your household?

a.) What are they doing?

i.) Working outside of the home?
ii.) At school or other collective activity?
iii.) At home?

b.) Have you or anyone you live with traveled recently?

i.) Where?
ii.) Means of transportation?

c.) Have you or anyone you live with been in a health care facility for care or a visit recently?

3.) How do you socialize now? How much, if at all? 

a.) Are you socially isolating?
b.) Are you being or having guests?

4.) What do you know about social distancing measures? And what are you practicing?

a.) 6 feet between people
b.) Hand washing
c.) Not touching and cleaning surfaces.

5.) How do you get the food you eat? 

6.) Do you have pets that you have to walk outside? 

7.) Do you or a household member have medical or age related risk factors relevant to COVID-19 infection?