On May 28, the Ministry of Labor published on its website the action guide for COVID-19 prevention and control during in-person work. The extensive guide includes mainly the following:
General rules:
- Employees who should not go to the workplace:
- Employees with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis.
- Employees with symptoms associated with COVID-19 until a confirmed positive case is ruled out.
Contact 171 or the person responsible for health care in the workplace immediately. - Employees who have been in close contact with or shared a physical space without keeping a safe distance from a confirmed case of COVID-19, even in the absence of symptoms.
- Basic protective measures
- Have a protocol in place for the entry and exit of employees.
- Instruct employees to wash their hands frequently with water and liquid soap for at least 40 seconds, or to clean their hands with a 70% alcohol-based hand sanitizer; this includes putting up health promotion posters.
This measure will also apply to customers, visitors, suppliers, contractors, subcontractors, etc.
Employers must ensure there is a permanent supply of water, liquid soap, drying towels, and alcohol-based hand sanitizers. - Encourage good respiratory hygiene habits, which includes putting up health promotion posters.
- Avoid greetings with handshakes, kisses or hugs.
- Keep a physical distance of 2 meters.
For this purpose, employers may consider teleworking, staggered work shifts, reduction of operations, remote service provision, replacement of face-to-face meetings with virtual communications, distribution of machines and equipment, spaces in cafeterias, restrooms, or others. - Ensure frequent cleaning and disinfection of offices, surfaces, equipment, and other elements in the workplace.
- Avoid, as far as possible, sharing material or work tools. If doing so, they must be disinfected before and after use.
- Ensure a safe commute.
- Conduct a SARS-CoV-2 exposure risk assessment on a job-by-job basis, taking the industry into account.
- Take measures to prevent the psychosocial risk that may arise from a COVID-19 case in the workplace.
- Once the SARS-CoV-2 exposure risk level has been determined, prevention and control measures must be taken as deemed appropriate.
- Assess individual risk factors of employees who are part of priority attention groups and in vulnerable conditions with documentation supporting their condition: people over 60 years old; pregnant and nursing women; people with disabilities; people with catastrophic, rare, orphan or high complexity diseases; people with immune disorders; and those considered substitute personnel or in charge of people with disabilities, chronic diseases, catastrophic diseases or school children. Telework should be a priority for people belonging to the abovementioned groups.
In-person work of vulnerable personnel is allowed: (i) when their activity cannot be carried out by teleworking and there is an evaluation carried out by the person responsible for health care in the workplace and the medical professional confirms that they can attend work in person; (ii) when their vulnerable condition does not imply probability of contagion of COVID-19 as determined by a previous assessment.
- For employees with suspected, probable, and confirmed cases of COVID-19, the following guidelines should be followed:
- For suspected cases, ill employees should be assessed by the person responsible for health care in the company or institution, or a call should be made to 171 or 911 to have a doctor evaluate the case. Ill employees should be moved to an area that is at least 2 meters away from other people, should not touch surfaces or objects, and should cover his/her mouth and nose.
- For confirmed cases, employers must inform colleagues of their possible exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace while keeping confidentiality.
- Employees and people who were exposed must be instructed on what to do in accordance with guidelines set by government authorities.
- Employers shall ensure the cleaning and disinfection of workspaces where COVID-19 cases are suspected or confirmed.
- Employees who have a family member at home sick with COVID-19 should notify the employer.
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