Preparing Food Processing Operations for Coronavirus

With the risk of Coronavirus (SARS-CoV2) rising in the US, food establishments should be implementing controls to minimize risk of COVID-19 among their personnel and begin planning for an increased risk level in the local populace. Recommendations for food processors that are based upon Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) guidance are provided below.

How Is Coronavirus Spread?

When someone who has COVID-19 coughs or exhales they release droplets of infected fluid. Most of these droplets fall on nearby surfaces and objects - such as desks, tables or telephones. People could catch COVID-19 by touching contaminated surfaces or objects – and then touching their eyes, nose or mouth. If they are standing within six feet of a person with COVID-19 they can catch it by breathing in droplets coughed out or exhaled by them. In other words, COVID-19 spreads in a similar way to flu. Most persons infected with COVID-19 experience mild symptoms and recover. However, some go on to experience more serious illness and may require hospital care. Risk of serious illness rises with age: people over 40 seem to be more vulnerable than those under 40." (WHO 2020

Enhanced Sanitary Environment

• Promote regular and thorough handwashing by employees, contractors, and customers. Provide soap and water and alcohol-based hand rubs in the workplace. Ensure that adequate supplies are maintained. Place hand rubs in multiple locations or in conference rooms to encourage hand hygiene

• Routinely clean all frequently touched surfaces in the workplace, such as workstations, countertops, and doorknobs. Use the cleaning agents that are usually used in these areas and follow the directions on the label.
• Provide disposable wipes so that commonly used surfaces (for example, doorknobs, keyboards, remote controls, desks) can be wiped down by employees before each use.

Employee Training

• Emphasize staying home when sick, reviewing the typical symptoms (listed below).
• Instruct employees to clean their hands often with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol, or encourage hand-washing with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds. Soap and water should be used preferentially if hands are visibly dirty.
• Practice proper coughing and sneezing etiquette including covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, putting your used tissue in a wastebasket, coughing or sneezing into your upper sleeve, not your hands, and remembering to wash your hands after coughing or sneezing.
• Employees who are well but have a sick family member at home with COVID-19 should notify their supervisor and refer to CDC guidance for how to conduct a risk assessment of their potential exposure.
• Emphasize the need for social distancing, as much as can be possible for a given operation. Social distancing means keeping a distance of at least 6 feet of others recommended — that's about two to three arm-lengths — and must become standard practice.

Actively encourage sick employees to stay home

• The CDC recommends that anyone that has symptoms of acute respiratory illness stay home and not come to work until they are free of fever (temperature less than 100.4° F [37.8° C] using an oral thermometer), and any other symptoms for at least 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing or other symptom-altering medicines (e.g. cough suppressants).
• Employees should notify their supervisor and stay home if they are sick.
• Ensure that your sick-leave policies are flexible and consistent with public health guidance and that employees are aware of these policies.
• Talk with companies that provide your business with a contract or temporary employees about the importance of sick employees staying home and encourage them to develop non-punitive leave policies.
• Do not require a healthcare provider's note for employees who are sick with acute respiratory illness to validate their illness or to return to work, as healthcare provider offices and medical facilities may be extremely busy and not able to provide such documentation in a timely way.
• Employers should maintain flexible policies that permit employees to stay home to care for a sick family member. Employers should be aware that more employees may need to stay at home to care for sick children or other sick family members than is usual.

Separate sick employees

CDC recommends that employees who appear to have acute respiratory illness symptoms (i.e. cough, shortness of breath) upon arrival to work or become sick during the day should be separated from other employees and be sent home immediately

Visitors and Meetings

• Try to conduct meetings with people from outside the company via conference call or on-line web viewing apps.
• Restrict meetings to only those that are essential for operations.
• Ask visitors and contractors to sign a notice that they do not have symptoms or have knowingly encountered someone who has symptoms.

Travel

• Advise employees to check themselves for symptoms of acute respiratory illness before starting travel and notify their supervisor and stay home if they are sick.
• Ensure employees who become sick while traveling or on temporary assignment understand that they should notify their supervisor and should promptly call a healthcare provider for advice if needed.
• Restrict international travel and put in appropriate controls for those that do.

Planning

• Develop a plan of what to do if someone becomes ill with suspected COVID-19 at one of your workplaces, including how to exclude or isolate them. Contact your local health authority to support identifying who may have contacted that employee.
• Prepare for possible increased numbers of employee absences due to illness in employees and their family members, dismissals of early childhood programs and K-12 schools due to high levels of absenteeism or illness; or a quarantine imposed on employees due to contact with a sick individual.
• Employers should plan to monitor and respond to absenteeism at the workplace. 
• Implement plans to continue your essential business functions in case you experience higher than usual absenteeism.
• Cross-train personnel to perform essential functions so that the workplace can maintain operations even if key staff members are absent.
• Assess your essential functions and the reliance that others and the community have on your services or products. Be prepared to change your business practices if needed to maintain critical operations (e.g., identify alternative suppliers, prioritize customers, or temporarily suspend some of your operations if needed).
• Increase inventories of finished goods in the event of decreased capabilities or increased demand.
• Increase inventories of ingredients and materials that may come in short supply, but do not buy more than you need. This includes gloves and sanitary supplies.
• Consider focusing production on main-line items that can be run more efficiently.

References and Resources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - Interim Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) - Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Frequently Asked Questions

U.S Department of Labor - Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for COVID-19 

World Health Organization (WHO) - Rolling updates on coronavirus disease (COVID-19)