OSHA Relaxes Covid-19 Requirements
OSHA Relaxes COVID-19-Related Record Keeping and Reporting Requirements
Applies to Most Employers Except for Healthcare Providers
On April 10, 2020, OSHA issued enforcement guidance revising and substantially relaxing its position on employers’ obligation to record on OSHA 300 logs or report to OSHA COVID-19-related infections, hospitalizations and fatalities, in order to “help employers 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.”
OSHA previously said that a confirmed case of COVID-19 was recordable (and reportable in the event of hospitalization or fatality) if the case was determined to be work-related. However, due to ongoing and widespread community transmission, OSHA recognizes that the vast majority of employers “may have difficulty making determinations about whether workers who contracted COVID-19 did so due to exposures at work. In light of those difficulties, OSHA is exercising its enforcement discretion in order to provide certainty to the regulated community.” Read More
“Until further notice, however, OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR § 1904 to require other employers to make work-relatedness determinations, except where:
- There is objective evidence that a COVID-19 case may be work-related. This could include, for example, a number of cases developing among workers who work closely together without an alternative explanation; and
- The evidence was reasonably available to the employer. For purposes of this memorandum, examples of reasonably available evidence include information given to the employer by employees, as well as information that an employer learns regarding its employees’ health and safety in the ordinary course of managing its business and employees.”
“COVID-19 is a respiratory illness and should be coded as such on the OSHA Form 300. Because this is an illness, if an employee voluntarily requests that his or her name not be entered on the log, the employer must comply as specified under 29 CFR § 1904.29(b)(7)(vi).”
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