Cal/OSHA’s Standards Board formally approved the readoption of California’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) with no substantive changes from the proposed draft.
That proposed draft brought with it seven major changes over the prior version of the ETS, however.
The revised ETS will become effective likely before the end of the first week of May 2022 and will remain in effect through Dec. 31, 2022, according to law firm Littler Mendelson.
Cal/OSHA stated that new FAQs are forthcoming that will explain how the California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) isolation and quarantine guidance will fit into the new ETS.
The agency also said CDPH guidance will not govern the operative definition of “close contact,” which the new ETS still defines as “being within six feet of a COVID-19 case for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or greater in any 24-hour period that overlaps with the infectious period of the COVID-19 case.”
Cal/OSHA clarified that only a CDPH regulation or order would supersede the ETS definition.
The agency is still working on a permanent infectious disease standard to replace the ETS, but it’s still unclear whether it’ll be a new permanent standard or an expansion of the aerosol transmissible disease standard.