Jun 8, 2020

CDC issues agriculture labor guidelines for COVID-19

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Labor issued guidance June 3 on protections for agricultural workers due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The guidance includes a list of recommendations for agricultural operation owners and operators for keeping workers safe from COVID-19. Additionally, the guidance explains what employers should do to prevent transmission of the virus among workers who share housing and transportation.

Key points include:

• Management in the agriculture industry should conduct worksite assessments external icon to identify coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) risks and infection prevention strategies to protect workers.
• Work site guidance for COVID-19 prevention and control should be taken into consideration in employer-furnished shared worker housing, transportation vehicles and work settings.
• Prevention practices should follow the hierarchy of controls, which includes using source control and a combination of engineering controls, administrative controls (especially proper sanitation, cleaning, and disinfection), and personal protective equipment.
• Grouping workers together into cohorts may reduce the spread of COVID-19 transmission in the workplace by minimizing the number of different individuals who come into close contact with each other over the course of a week, and may also reduce the number of workers quarantined because of exposure to the virus.
• Owners/operators should maximize opportunities to place farmworkers residing together in the same vehicles for transportation and in the same cohorts to limit exposure.
• Basic information and training about infection prevention should be provided to all farmworkers in languages they can understand.
• Agriculture work sites developing plans for continuing operations where COVID-19 is spreading among workers or in the surrounding community should work directly with appropriate state and local public health officials and occupational safety and health professionals.

For more information, click here.