Cal/OSHA has new fact sheets and updated FAQs on California’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) posted on its website, reflecting recent changes made to the standard.
The agency officially updated the ETS on April 21, 2022, and promised that new information clarifying certain parts of the standard would be forthcoming.
Facts sheets and FAQs include:
- What Employers Need to Know About the April 21, 2022 Standards
- COVID-19 Isolation and Quarantine – What Employers and Workers Need to Know, and
- Revisions to the COVID-19 Prevention Emergency Temporary Standards.
The updated ETS reflects updated guidance from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and makes the standard more flexible if further changes are made to CDPH guidance, according to Cal/OSHA.
Permanent standard still on the way
When the updated ETS was adopted in April, Cal/OSHA said CDPH guidance wouldn’t 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.”
The agency clarified that only a CDPH regulation or order would supersede the ETS definition.
A permanent infectious disease standard to replace the ETS is still in the works, but it’s unclear at this point whether it’ll be a new permanent standard or an expansion of the state’s aerosol transmissible disease standard.
