Covid-19 in the workplace
Raymond Agius, J.F.R. Robertson, Denise Kendrick, Herb F. Sewell, Marcia Stewart, Martin McKee
Abstract
Faced with a novel lethal virus, employers have struggled to implement their legal duty to protect staff from harm in the workplace.There is no international case definition for attributing an occupational origin to covid-19 cases, and the World Health Organization has so far prepared a surveillance protocol only for healthcare workers. 1 Employers are accountable, in the UK, to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and must notify it when there is "reasonable evidence" of a worker contracting covid-19 through occupational exposure. 2 3In general, HSE expects to be notified if it is "more likely than not that the person's work was the source of exposure-as opposed to general societal exposure."However, HSE also states that work with the general public-as opposed to work with people known to be infected-is not usually sufficient to trigger reporting. 2HSE has published a technical summary of the 8666 notifications of covid-19 in workers in England, Scotland, and Wales, including 125 deaths, from 10 April to 8 August. 4Data before 10 April 2020 are excluded because of a change in methods.The weekly number of notifications peaked at 1183 (including 23 deaths) in the week ending 2 May 2020, two weeks later than the peak of deaths among the general population, as reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 51 World Health Organization.Surveillance protocol for SARS-CoV-2 infection among health workers.2020.https://apps.who.