Calif. offers COVID-19 safety guidance for events, venues

The California Department of Public Health on Friday launched supplemental workplace safety requirements for employers overseeing events at private events and venues, calling for social distancing, employee testing and mask-wearing.

The new guidance follows the Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s implementation of an emergency temporary standard to prevent worker exposures to COVID-19 “in most workplaces where workers are not covered by Cal/OSHA’s Aerosol Transmissible Diseases standard,” according to the health department.

Under Cal/OSHA’s standard, employers have obligations including to develop and implement policies and procedures to prevent disease transmission in the workplace; to identify new disease cases if they occur; and, when they are identified, to intervene quickly and work with public health authorities to halt the spread of the virus.

The health department said the latest guidance “has been updated to clarify any instances where public health guidance imposes additional requirements beyond those mandated by the ETS and to highlight additional recommended practices for public health purposes beyond those mandated by the ETS.”

Such rules for private events and venues include that attendance must be limited to a pre-determined list with assigned seating and that entry and exit points “should be tightly controlled to prevent concentrations of people.”

More insurance and workers compensation news on the coronavirus crisis here.