On December 15, 2022, the California Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board (Board) adopted COVID-19 prevention non-emergency workplace standards in a 6-1 vote. The standards will be in Title 8, Division 1, Chapter 4, Subchapter 7, of California’s regulations and, if approved by the Office of Administrative Law, will take effect in January 2023. The standards will sunset two years following their effective date, except for certain recordkeeping requirements that will remain in effect for three years.

Subchapter 7, titled “General Industry Safety Orders,” establishes minimum occupational safety and health standards that generally apply to all places of employment in California. In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Board previously approved emergency temporary standards (ETS) on COVID-19 prevention starting in November 2020, which were revised in June 2017, January 2022, and May 2022. However, the May 2022 ETS is set to expire on December 31, 2022.

Notable portions of the adopted non-emergency standards are summarized below.

• Prevention Program: Employers are no longer required to maintain a standalone COVID-19 Prevention Plan but must still address COVID-19 in their written Injury and Illness Prevention Programs or other standalone documents that include measures to address COVID-19 transmission in the workplace. Further, employers are required to review applicable state and local health department guidance when determining measures to prevent and address COVID-19 transmission.
• Screening and Exclusion: Employers will no longer have to perform daily screenings of employees, whether through questionnaires or otherwise. Employees instead are encouraged to report their own symptoms and stay home if ill. Time periods for exclusion have been shortened, and employees who are deemed close contacts do not necessarily have to be excluded if they test negative and meet certain other requirements.
• Employee Accommodations: In perhaps the most contested development, employers will no longer have to provide paid time off to infected employees or close contacts ordered to stay home. Instead, those employees must rely on other existing benefits if they are unable to work due to COVID-19 infection or isolation. Employers must continue to provide respirators to employees upon requests, and employees must still wear masks at work for at least 5 days if exposed. Companies experiencing outbreaks, defined as three or more cases in a 14-day period, must make testing available to exposed employees immediately and provide tests twice a week.
• Notice and Timing: Notice rules now only require notice to close contacts “as soon as possible” while simplifying the notice contents. However, employers should remain mindful of similar applicable rules that currently still require that the notice be given within one business day. Outbreaks no longer require “no new cases” to conclude and instead only require “one or fewer” new cases over a two-week period. A major outbreak, defined as 20 cases in a 30-day period, must be reported to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. While there will no longer be a requirement to report outbreaks to local public health agencies, employers should still be mindful of other local standards for reporting.
• Close Contacts and Testing: The “close contact” definition continues to follow that used by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), which defines a close contact depending on the size of the workspace and regardless of the use of face coverings.
  • A close contact occurs in an indoor workspace with floor space of 400,000 cubic feet or less when someone shares the same indoor airspace as an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period during the infectious period.
  • A close contact occurs for larger indoor workspaces when someone is within 6 feet of the infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more during a 24-hour period during the infectious period.

Notably, this standard affirmatively states that any future amendments to the CDPH definition will take precedent over the Board’s adopted definition. Employers must also follow applicable CDPH guidance to improve ventilation and filtration. Further, employers will now only have to make testing available at no cost to employees who are considered close contacts of an infected coworker, versus previous requirements that testing be made available to all symptomatic employees.

• Infectious Period: This definition also tracks that of CDPH and states that a person is considered infectious for two days prior to symptoms and 10 days after unless they test negative from the fifth day onward. For an asymptomatic person, these same timeframes apply based on the date of the first positive test.

The Board’s news release can be read here and the text of the adopted standards is available here. We will continue to monitor COVID-19 and other workplace health and safety developments in the Corporate Environmental Lawyer.