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Category: Communication

Description: This protocol is intended to serve as an evidence-based, continuously-updated guide for occupational health and human resources teams to help reduce the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (hereafter COVID-19) transmission at worksites. The protocol intends to help streamline the efforts of occupational health and human resources departments to perform risk assessment, screening (including testing), and contact tracing of workers. The protocol has two principal objectives: 1. During the spring and summer of 2020, and thereafter, to reduce morbidity and mortality among ‘essential’ workers (as defined and determined by local, state, and federal government authorities) who remain working and potentially exposed and undiagnosed with the virus that causes COVID-19 disease; 2. During the summer and fall of 2020, to reduce morbidity and mortality among workers in ‘non-essential’ roles (those currently working from home under shelter-in-place orders) who may return to congregate worksites during the summer and fall of 2020, despite potential ongoing risk of transmission of coronavirus, and possible resurgence of the epidemic. The protocol is intended to help minimize risk of adverse health outcomes among workers and their contacts in the context of considerable uncertainty regarding the pathogenesis, transmission dynamics and prevalence of the disease in the United States at the current time. The protocol is also intended to be a living document that receives continuous peer review from occupational health, epidemiology, and infectious disease experts, with the intention of further reducing workplace risk for transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19 in the context of gradual learning about the pathogenesis of disease; its epidemiology; and available technologies to reduce its incidence, transmission, and associated mortality.