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Guidance on distancing

Recent guidance focuses on strategies to implement social distancing in the workplace. Spanish version. It urges employers to isolate workers showing symptoms of coronavirus until they can go home or seek medical care, establish flexible worksites and work hours, stagger breaks and rearrange seating in common areas to maintain social distance, mark social distancing with floor tape where customers are present and reposition work stations and install plastic partitions to create more distance. It also issued new procedures to make it easier for federal workers in high-risk industries to obtain workers compensation for COVID-19.

Coronavirus alerts: Industry specific recommended practices

In May, recommended business practices were released for food service, nursing homes and long-term care facilities, dental practitioners, retail pharmacies, and rideshare, taxi and car services. All business guidances released to date can be found here in English and Spanish.

COVID-19 Quick Tips Videos

New animated videos provide quick tips to keep workers safe from COVID-19:

For all the quick tip videos released related to coronavirus, including Spanish versions, go here.

Eight ways to protect meat processing workers from COVID-19

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Loren Sweatt outlined eight ways to protect meat processing workers from COVID-19.

Guidance is now available in English and Spanish.

COVID-19 Q & A: Social distancing in meat and poultry facilities

Q. In some areas of meat and poultry processing facilities, social distancing at 6 feet of distance may not be feasible in order to maintain continued operation at the maximum capacity possible. In these areas, are other controls, based on the hierarchy of controls outlined in the CDC/OSHA guidance (e.g., personal protective equipment) acceptable in order to maintain safe operations at the maximum capacity possible?

A. Employers should use the hierarchy of controls to control hazards and protect workers, including by first trying to eliminate hazards from the workplace, then implementing engineering controls followed by administrative controls and safe work practices, and finally, using personal protective equipment (PPE). When engineering controls, such as physical barriers, are not feasible in a particular workplace or for a certain operation, other types of controls, including PPE, may be considered in accordance with the hierarchy.