OSHA Updates COVID-19 Reporting Guidance

OSHA recently updated its reporting guidance for work-related confirmed hospitalizations due to COVID-19, as well as work-related COVID-19 fatalities. The guidance can be found here.

Regarding hospitalizations:

•         the employer must report to OSHA if the in-patient hospitalization occurred within 24 hours of workplace exposure to COVID-19; and

•         the report must be made within 24 hours of learning that (a) the employee has been hospitalized as an in-patient and (b) the reason for the hospitalization was work-related COVID-19.

Regarding fatalities:

•         the employer must report a fatality that occurs within 30 days of workplace exposure to COVID-19; and

•         the report must be made within 8 hours of knowing both that (a) the employee has died (b) and that the cause of death was a work-related case of COVID-19.

Finally, keep in mind that for most employers COVID-19 is recordable illness if it is work-related. In determining if COVID-19 is work-related, OSHA examines:

•         the reasonableness of the employer's investigation into work-relatedness. (“It is sufficient in most circumstances for the employer, when it learns of an employee's COVID-19 illness, (1) to ask the employee how he believes he contracted the COVID-19 illness; (2) while respecting employee privacy, discuss with the employee his work and out-of-work activities that may have led to the COVID-19 illness; and (3) review the employee's work environment for potential SARS-CoV-2 exposure. The review in (3) should be informed by any other instances of workers in that environment contracting COVID-19 illness.”);

•         the evidence available to the employer; and

•         the evidence that a COVID-19 illness was contracted at work (i.e., did several cases develop among close environs, possible exposure to customer with COVID-19, working in high-frequency communities, etc.).  

For more details, see 29 CFR 1904.39(b)(6) (reporting) and https://www.osha.gov/memos/2020-05-19/revised-enforcement-guidance-recording-cases-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19 (recordkeeping).