When a COVID-19 case occurs, the first priority is to protect and prevent the spread. If one employee is diagnosed with COVID-19, the employer needs to look at the possibilities of isolation and disinfection immediately.  A manufacturing environment is very much its own little community, and oftentimes, people will talk. It is important to keep the identity of the infected employee private, which can be a challenge when other employees begin to ask about whether a coworker has contracted COVID-19. They are concerned that they, themselves, may be at risk or might have been inadvertently got exposed to the virus. This leads to tracing, which can involve the impacted employee’s coworkers, friends and family members.  While Global Automotive Systems has worked very hard to keep the workplace safe, and the safety team did a great deal of preparation towards protecting employees from COVID-19 in the workplace, the team realized they can’t always control what employees do outside of the workplace. The other concern for the safety team is striking a balance between production impact and panic. From a production impact, the team wants to protect people, which means you might need to remove people from the plant, but at the same time, companies need people to work. It’s also important not to cause other employees to panic. 

Incident Case Study

Within Global Automotive Systems, the Safety team learned that one of their employees who works in a particular facility tested positive for COVID-19 over the previous weekend. The employee notified Global Automotive Systems’ HR department and a quick response test indicated the employee was positive. The safety team immediately worked to identify any employees who would have been in direct contact with the infected employee. These were coworkers who were directly exposed to the infected employee, in this instance, in a small die room.  

Even though the company ventilates and sanitizes work areas, three employees had been in direct contact with the infected employee and were considered at risk. An additional 80 employees were considered indirect contact employees, because they all visited the same break room, rest rooms and general areas of the plant. Through contact tracing, the safety team was able to identify and notify these additional employees about the possibility of exposure. The team immediately quarantined those employees and made sure that they went to be tested as quickly as possible. 

Next, the safety team worked to identify other areas in the plant where indirect exposure was possible. These locations included a break room, restrooms, common areas, etc. The team took direct countermeasures to prevent exposure. They needed to consider how recently the infected employee visited those hot-spot areas, what did they do, with whom they interacted, on what shift did the interaction occur, in which break area did the interaction take place, and so on. Gathering all those details is very important in making the determination of whether more employees needed to quarantine. Ideally, the company did not want to shut down the entire facility. From a manufacturing aspect, it is critical to prevent the spread and exposure enough to where the team could isolate it, and then prevent the others from exposure and possibly contracting COVID-19 as well.