C FACTOR
COVID-19: Treat It as Another Safety Program Kenneth Enlow
President, FWPCOA
G
reetings, everyone. I hope you all are doing well.
There is no doubt that COVID-19 is affecting all parts of our lives, at work and at home. As we move forward through this year—and maybe even beyond—we are not
10 August 2020 • Florida Water Resources Journal
certain what the future holds. That being said, we will continue to provide the services essential to the health and well-being of the public we serve. To ensure that we have a measure of protection during this time, we must be diligent in practicing universal controls to help prevent the spread of this virus. Wearing face masks, washing hands, maintaining social distancing, and frequent disinfection of our work spaces are all part of this. Beyond all of this, we have an obligation to ensure that we are not unnecessarily exposing ourselves to COVID-19 when we are away from our jobs. As an essential service to the public, we must conduct ourselves off the job in a way that will help to prevent the spread of the virus on the job. Things like avoiding large groups and gatherings, wearing face coverings in public, and staying home on our days off—except for necessary visits to the store, doctor’s office, or for other essential needs—will help to keep all of us healthy. Universal controls should not be a concept we are not familiar with. This is just another term to define measures put into place to protect people from hazards. We, as an industry, are very familiar with implementing safety procedures for the many hazards we face every day. We define ways to eliminate or minimize exposures, which we do through engineering controls or work environment changes to eliminate hazards. In cases where we cannot eliminate a hazard, we mitigate it through safety barriers or personal protective equipment (PPE). The universal controls that have been prescribed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus are essential the same type of safety precautions we would implement in our industry to help protect us from any other hazard. Wearing PPE (like face masks), disinfecting surfaces to eliminate exposure, social distancing, reporting illnesses that are recognized symptoms of COVID-19, and staying home when you are sick are all part of a safety program.
