The government issued new sector guidance yesterday 7th April which incorporates the statement below.

You should plan work to minimise contact between workers and avoid skin-to-skin and face-to-face contact. Where face-to-face contact is essential, this should be kept to 15 minutes or less wherever possible.

Unlike exposure to industrial chemicals whereby Workplace Exposure Levels (WELs) exist, there is no specified safe exposure level for biological agents so I am interest if anyone can enlighten me as to the validity of the 15 minutes particularly as there is no reference to manadatory PPE.

So it takes more than 15 minutes to contract COVID? Not an expert, but I think not. Don't see a mention of social distancing in these pearls of wisdom.

I think we best describe this as a guess. The science behind how virus infect people and how they interact with surfaces (fomites) etc is a bit thin. Detecting them is not straightforward, counting them is even more problematic. All of this research relies on analogues not the actual infectious agents (Would you volunteer to be exposed to Ebola to see how it spreads?). We know that the minimum number of infectious particles required to produce ill varies a great deal. One family of viruses (picornaviruses-which means tiny viruses) are notoriously infectious. They cause polio, the common cold (rhinovirus), foot and mouth disease in cattle and sheep etc. One norovirus (winter vomiting virus) is believed by some researchers to be capable of causing an infection with less than ten actual virus particles. Fortunately we are dealing a coronaviruses which are less infectious but still the minimum infectious dose is probably relatively small. Bu then other factors come into play such as how fresh the virus is. Has it been just been cough up or has it been hanging around for hour? Coronaviruses don’t seem to remain octave for a long time on fomites.  How long they last depends on the nature of the surface, the temperature and the humidity. But this is a new coronavirus which we have only been aware of since December 2019, so a lot of this is guess work and extrapolation from other coronaviruses including SARS.

So the advice is probably ok but it is not a guarantee that if you follow it you will be fully protected.

It think the government felt obliged to say something other than let’s close all building sites down. Essentially, can’t afford any more people at home claiming benefits and not contributing to GDP.

Originally Posted by: Kim Hedges

So if one of your workers gets a suspected covid19 infection, you report it to RIDDOR.

Pantomime season - oh no you don't

RIDDOR reporting of COVID-19

You must only make a report under RIDDOR (The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013) when: 

• an unintended incident at work has led to someone’s possible or actual exposure to coronavirus. This must be reported as a dangerous occurrence.
• a worker has been diagnosed as having COVID 19 and there is reasonable evidence that it was caused by exposure at work. This must be reported as a case of disease.
• a worker dies as a result of occupational exposure to coronavirus.