Friday, March 13, 2020 is often viewed as the day America began to feel the impact of COVID-19. The following week, businesses throughout the country either transitioned to remote work or had to reckon with how to operate in a different manner while trying to protect workers from exposure to the virus.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens wrote those words more than 160 years ago, but they ring true today as we seek to protect workers in the wake of the pandemic.
A total of 5,333 workers died as a result of on-the-job injuries in 2019 – a 1.6% increase from 2018 and the highest number of fatalities since 5,657 were recorded in 2007, according to Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries data released Dec. 16 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While business owners and consumers closely watch how the new more readily transmittable variant of COVID-19 develops, the occupational environmental health and safety (OEHS) profession is urging business owners, schools and other organizations to continue implementing practical science-based guidelines developed by AIHA.
The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), the world’s oldest professional safety organization, is urging employers to be more active in adopting voluntary national consensus standards and implementing safety and health management systems in response to newly released fatality data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The National Safety Council is alarmed to see a 2% rise in total worker deaths – 5,333 fatal workplace injuries in 2019 compared to 5,250 in 2018 – according to data released on Wednesday, December 16 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, infections began spreading at the JBS USA beef processing plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, the area’s largest employer with 3,500 workers.
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