BUSINESS
How can my business decrease the spread of influenza?
- Encourage sick employees to stay at home.
- Encourage your employees to wash their hands frequently with soap and water or with hand sanitizer if there is no soap or water available. Also, encourage your employees to avoid touching their noses, mouths, and eyes.
- Encourage your employees to cover their coughs and sneezes with a tissue, or to cough and sneeze into their upper sleeves if tissues are not available. All employees should wash their hands or use a hand sanitizer after they cough, sneeze or blow their noses.
- Employees should avoid close contact with their coworkers and customers (maintain a separation of at least 6 feet). They should avoid shaking hands and always wash their hands after contact with others. Even if employees wear gloves, they should wash their hands upon removal of the gloves in case their hand(s) became contaminated during the removal process.
- Provide customers and the public with tissues and trash receptacles, and with a place to wash or disinfect their hands.
- Keep work surfaces, telephones, computer equipment and other frequently touched surfaces and office equipment clean. Be sure that any cleaner used is safe and will not harm your employees or your office equipment. Use only disinfectants registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and follow all directions and safety precautions indicated on the label.
- Discourage your employees from using other employees' phones, desks, offices or other work tools and equipment.
- Minimize situations where groups of people are crowded together, such as in a meeting. Use e-mail, phones and text messages to communicate with each other. When meetings are necessary, avoid close contact by keeping a separation of at least 6 feet, where possible, and assure that there is proper ventilation in the meeting room.
- Reducing or eliminating unnecessary social interactions can be very effective in controlling the spread of infectious diseases. Reconsider all situations that permit or require employees, customers, and visitors (including family members) to enter the workplace. Workplaces which permit family visitors on site should consider restricting/eliminating that option during an influenza pandemic. Work sites with on-site day care should consider in advance whether these facilities will remain open or will be closed, and the impact of such decisions on employees and the business.
- Promote healthy lifestyles, including good nutrition, exercise, and smoking cessation. A person's overall health impacts their body's immune system and can affect their ability to fight off, or recover from, an infectious disease.
Use good hygiene practices
- Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze; put the used tissue in a waste basket and clean your hands.
- Cover your mouth and nose with your upper sleeve (not your hands) if you do not have a tissue and need to cough or sneeze.
- Clean your hands as soon as possible after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose.
- Use soap and water and wash your hands for 15 - 20 seconds; or
- Use alcohol-based hand wipes or alcohol-based (60-95% alcohol) gel hand sanitizers; rub these on the hands until the liquid or gel dries.
- Clean your hands often when you or others are sick, especially if you touch your mouth, nose, and eyes.
- Always clean your hands before eating.
- Carry alcohol-based hand wipes or alcohol-based (60-95% alcohol) hand-sanitizing gels with you to clean your hands when you are out in public.
- Teach your children to use these hygiene practices because germs are often spread at school.
Clean and disinfect hard surfaces and items in the home, school, and at work.
- Follow label instructions carefully when using disinfectants and cleaners.
- Pay attention to any hazard warnings and instructions on the labels for using personal protective items (such as household gloves).
- Do not mix disinfectants and cleaners unless the labels indicate it is safe to do so. Combining certain products (such as chlorine bleach and ammonia cleaners) can be harmful, resulting in serious injury or death.
- Keep hard surfaces like kitchen countertops, tabletops, desktops, and bathroom surfaces clean and disinfected.
- Clean the surface with a commercial product that is both a detergent (cleans) and a disinfectant (kills germs). These products can be used when surfaces are not visibly dirty.
- Another way to do this is to wash the surface with a general household cleaner (soap or detergent), rinse with water, and follow with a disinfectant. This method should be used for visibly dirty surfaces.
- Use disinfectants on surfaces that are touched often. Clean the surface as explained above before using disinfectants.
- If disinfectants are not available, use a chlorine bleach solution made by adding 1 tablespoon of bleach to a quart (4 cups) of water; use a cloth to apply this to surfaces and let stand for 3 – 5 minutes before rinsing with clean water. (For a larger supply of disinfectant, add ¼ cup of bleach to a gallon [16 cups] of water.)
- Wear gloves to protect your hands when working with strong bleach solutions.
- Keep surfaces touched by more than one person clean and disinfected. Examples of these surfaces include doorknobs, refrigerator door handles, and microwaves.
- Clean with a combination detergent and disinfectant product. Or use a cleaner first, rinse the surface thoroughly, and then follow with a disinfectant.
- Use sanitizer cloths to wipe electronic items that are touched often, such as phones, computers, remote controls, and hand-held games.
- Use sanitizer cloths to wipe car door handles, the steering wheel, and the gear shift.
Use recommended waste disposal practices
- Toss tissues into waste baskets after they have been used for coughs, sneezes, and blowing your nose.
- Place waste baskets where they are easy to use.
- Avoid touching used tissues and other waste when emptying waste baskets.
- Clean your hands after emptying waste baskets.
Social Distancing
People with a novel (new) influenza virus infection should be considered potentially contagious as long as they are symptomatic and possibly for up to 7 days following illness onset. Children, especially younger children, might potentially be contagious for longer periods. How can you protect yourself and your family? Avoid close contact with people who are sick. When you are sick, keep your distance from others to protect them from getting sick too. If possible, stay home from work, school (including after school activities), and errands if you become ill. You will help prevent others from catching your illness.
Employee sick policies
In the event of pandemic influenza, businesses will play a key role in protecting employees' health and safety as well as limiting the negative impact to the economy and society. Planning for pandemic influenza is critical. Forecast and allow for employee absences during a pandemic due to factors such as personal illness, family member illness, community containment measures and quarantines, school and/or business closures, and public transportation closures. Employers need to be aware of company policies and procedures on sick leave.
How Can Businesses Limit the Spread of Pandemic Flu?
Pandemic flu spreads easily from person to person. Workplaces are areas where close
personal contact happens regularly and provides the opportunity for the fast spread of the
virus. There are many things employers and employees can do to limit this spread.
What can employers do?
- Limit meetings or other activities where employees have to work near each other or
have close, face-to-face contact.
- Use teleconferencing when possible.
- Provide soap and paper towels in the workplace.
- Clean common areas such as door handles, tables, and desks often.
- Allow employees to work from home if possible.
- Buy hand sanitizers (at least 60% alcohol) and boxes of tissues, and place them in
all your conference rooms and common areas.
- Post signs that remind people to cover their coughs and sneezes with a tissue or
upper sleeve.
- Post signs that remind people to wash their hands often.
- Encourage employees that are sick to stay home.
- Develop plans that address employee absences and sick leave/sick pay.
- Communicate reliable and up-to-date information about the pandemic flu situation.
What can employees do?
- Wash hands for at least 15 seconds several times a day, especially before and after
eating or using the rest room.
- Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, or cough or
sneeze into your upper sleeve – not your hands.
- Use hand sanitizers when soap and water are not available.
- Stay home if you are sick.
- Ask your employer about their plan for operating during a pandemic and if you can
work from home.
- Watch, listen to, or read the news to stay informed about the status of the pandemic
or the availability of a vaccine.
- Remind family members to practice the same healthy habits.
Educational tools:
Business Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist (pdf)
Cover Your Cough - Children (pdf)
Cover Your Cough - Adult (pdf)
Washing Your Hands (pdf)
Be a Germ-Buster poster (pdf)
Stop! Help Protect Your Co-Workers From Influenza poster
What Employers Can Do to Protect Workers from Pandemic Influenza
How to Protect Yourself in the Workplace during a Pandemic
What Do I Need to Know About Pandemic Flu? Poster
Pandemic Influenza table tents
Which Soap is Best?
Videos:
Health Habits video
Questions video
Get Prepared video
Know video
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