Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “COVID–19 Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2020”.
COVID–19 Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2020
A BILL
To direct the Secretary of Labor to issue an emergency temporary standard that requires certain employers to develop and implement a comprehensive infectious disease exposure control plan to protect employees in the health care sectors and other employees at elevated risk from exposure to SARS–CoV–2, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Findings
Congress finds the following:
The infectious disease COVID–19 presents a grave danger to health care workers who are the first line of defense of the United States against this epidemic.
Hundreds of health care workers in the United States have been infected or quarantined due to exposure to patients with COVID–19. Surveys conducted by health care worker unions and others have found that many health care facilities are inadequately prepared to safely protect health care workers who are exposed to the virus.
Inadequate infection control precautions have a detrimental impact on health care workers, patients and the public, and if there is breakdown in health care worker protections, the Nation’s public health system is placed at risk.
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (hereinafter referred to as “SARS”) epidemic of 2003 and 2004 in Canada, which involved a coronavirus, resulted in a disproportionately large number of infections of both health care workers and patients in Ontario, Canada, hospitals due to insufficient infection control procedures involving SARS.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration began rulemaking on a standard to protect health care workers from airborne and other infectious diseases in 2009. In 2017, the Trump Administration suspended work on this rulemaking, removing it from the active Regulatory Agenda.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a document entitled, “2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings” in July, 2007. However, the guideline in such document is not binding.
Absent an enforceable standard, employers lack mandatory requirements to implement an effective and ongoing infection and exposure control program that provides protection to health care workers from COVID–19.
Section 6(c)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act authorizes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue an “Emergency Temporary Standard” if employees are exposed to grave danger from harmful agents or new hazards and if an emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger. The widespread outbreak of COVID–19 clearly satisfies these two conditions.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has received two petitions in March 2020 calling on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect workers from COVID–19.
An Emergency Temporary Standard is necessary to ensure the immediate protection of workers in health care workplaces and other high-risk workplaces identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from infection related to COVID–19.