COVID-19
Please be reminded that in accordance with the order of the Provincial Health Officer we will be requesting to see your development plan for your holiday party, specifically the safety measures taken to protect your employees and our Entertainers during the event. Physical distancing is obviously a challenge with children, but first and foremost we want to ensure the safety of each and every individual and that the entertainers remain safe and protected pending further recommendations from your Provincial Health Officer.
COVID-19 and returning to safe operation
WorkSafeBC recognizes the importance of worker safety as businesses look to resume operations following COVID-19 related work stoppages or interruptions. The following materials provide employers with information and resources to assist them in ensuring the risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19 is minimized at their workplace.
Employers are required to develop a COVID-19 Safety Plan that outlines the policies, guidelines, and procedures they have put in place to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. This plan follows the six steps outlined below. Employers must involve frontline workers, joint health and safety committees, and supervisors in identifying protocols for their workplace. You do not need a formal plan in place to begin operation, but are expected to develop it while protecting the safety of your workers.
Assess the risk at your workplace
Employers must assess their workplaces in order to identify places where the risk of transmission is introduced. This process must involve frontline workers, supervisors, and joint health and safety committees and/or worker representatives. You should continue to assess the workplace after operations resume to ensure risks are identified and managed.
The virus that causes COVID-19 spreads in several ways, including through droplets when a person coughs or sneezes, or from touching a contaminated surface before touching the face. To understand the risk at your workplace, consider the following questions:
- Where do people congregate, such as break rooms, production lines, or meeting rooms?
- What job tasks or processes require workers to come into close proximity with one another or members of the public?
- What surfaces are touched often, such as doorknobs, elevator buttons, light switches, equipment, and shared tools?
Where physical distance cannot be maintained
- Where distance cannot be maintained, consider separating people with partitions or plexiglass barriers.
- Where other measures are not sufficient, consider the use of non-medical masks, understanding that these have limitations.
- Maintain a distance of 2 metres (6 feet) between workers and others wherever possible, by revising work schedules, organizing work tasks, and employing the use of dollies or other aids for work tasks that would typically be done by more than one person.
If you have a questions or concerns
Workers and employers with questions or concerns about workplace exposure to the COVID-19 virus can call WorkSafeBC’s Prevention Information Line at 604.276.3100 in the Vancouver, BC (toll-free within B.C. at 1.888.621.SAFE). You’ll be able to speak to a prevention officer to get answers to your questions, and if required, a prevention officer will be assigned to assess the health and safety risk at your workplace.
