Employers across Tucson and the nation have set up new cleaning protocols, rejiggered work schedules and revamped workplace layouts for social distancing, to get back to business safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now comes the hardest part β getting employees back to work while keeping workplaces virus-free.
More Tucson-area employers, particularly small businesses, are asking questions about how to treat employees with who have tested positive for COVID-19, said Tim Medcoff, a longtime labor lawyer and partner in the local law firm Farhang & Medcoff.
Testing positive
βWeβve had more and more employers call us with positive situations, asking what they can do to balance the privacy rights of the person who tested positive, while also trying to engage in responsible contact tracing,β he said.
Itβs a tough balancing act for employers, but there are ways to do it, said Medcoff, the current chairman of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
Medcoff says employers should reach out to employees who have tested positive for COVID-19 and make sure they avoid the workplace and seek proper medical care.
To avoid running afoul of medical privacy laws, employers should ask affected workers for permission to release their names on a need-to-know basis in order to track the possible infection paths at work, for example, he said.
Medcoff said his clientsβ experience shows most infected employees have been willing to allow their names to be released for purposes of tracing their whereabouts, over a recommended period of 48 hours before their diagnoses.
Thatβs important to identify co-workers and customers whom an infected employee may have exposed to the virus, as well as workplace areas that need special sanitization.
Workers who report they may have been exposed to a person with COVID-19 pose their own challenges, since it may be hard to determine the level of exposure, Medcoff said.
Coronavirus czars
To make sure they are getting accurate information from employees, companies should clearly communicate to their staffs the efforts being made to keep the workplace virus-free and urge workers to report any illness or possible exposure, he added.
Medcoff said he advises employers to create a three-member βCOVID-19 response teamβ to not only implement safety policies and procedures but to assure consistent messaging to employees, as well as customers.
The team should include a cleaning βczar,β or lead, to handle procedures for sanitization and the use of personal protective equipment and make sure workplaces continue to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidelines.
Companies should also appoint a communications czar to keep workers, as well as customers and vendors, informed of virus-control practices including social distancing and cleaning and bathroom policies.
And companies should name a human-resources czar to answer all COVID-19 related questions, handle sick or exposed employees and process requests for paid time off.
If an employee is too sick to work remotely while at home and the employer has fewer than 500 employees, the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act provides eligible employees with emergency paid sick leave and emergency paid family medical leave.
Those cases are important to track because the emergency COVID-19 sick leave is paid by employers, who then can be fully reimbursed through refundable payroll tax credits.
Sick leave untapped
Arizonaβs state-mandated paid sick leave policy can be used in addition to the federally mandated emergency COVID-19 leave, but many workers are unaware of the law, said Shefali Milczarek-Desai, an assistant clinical professor in the University of Arizonaβs James E. Rogers School of Law and director of the schoolβs Workersβ Rights Clinic.
The state leave law, which went into effect in mid-2017, requires employers of any size to provide paid sick leave at a rate of one hour earned for every 30 hours worked, until certain caps are reached.
βItβs nothing new to Arizona, but what weβve seen is, workers donβt know they have that paid leave under Arizona law, and many employers donβt know about it either,β said Milczarek-Desai, whose clinic is staffed by UA law students and serves low-income workers.
Workers who have been illegally denied sick leave or are fired or otherwise penalized for taking time off have few options, since most canβt afford to hire a lawyer.
The U.S. Department of Labor is supposed to enforce the federal sick-leave policy, which is part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, but Milczarek-Desai hasnβt seen much enforcement.
βI think workers have very little recourse, and itβs frightening,β she said. βWhat weβre seeing is, people just keep going to work, even if theyβre sick or they have their children that are sick.β
Screening and testing
Under existing and special federal regulations, employers have the right to require employees to wear personal protective equipment such as masks and to impose COVID-19 screening measures such as taking workersβ temperatures before they enter the workplace.
Taking workersβ temperatures as they arrive at work is one strategy to spot infected employees, since fever is just one symptom of COVID-19 and often isnβt present in infected people, Medcoff said.
βA temperature check is not indicative of COVID-19, itβs indicative of one symptom of COVID-19,β he said.
Medcoff said employees who are ill and suspect they may be infected with or exposed to COVID-19 should see their doctors and get testing and treatment under their health-insurance plans.
Most major health plans cover coronavirus testing, and insurers including United Healthcare are waiving out-pocket patient costs including co-pays and co-insurance for such testing during the national public health emergency.
If an employer insists that an employee who is not showing COVID-19 symptoms get a test β for example, to make sure they are no longer infected in order to return to work β then the employer should pay for the testing, Medcoff said.
Testing well workers
One idea to keep the virus out of the workplace is to conduct routine, rapid testing of all employees even without symptoms, but one local employer says that option appears to be both limited in availability and practicality.
When the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute reopened its offices in mid-June, CEO and Director Mark Sykes looked into setting up regular COVID-19 testing for all of its roughly 45 local employees, though many including the science staff are able to work from home.
βWe get a lot of work done through casual conversations, so itβs in our interest to keep employees together,β Sykes said. βBut we have a lot of employees who are high-risk (for COVID-19), or have children or parents who are high-risk and they donβt want to bring something home.β
The nonprofit institute, which has been involved in NASA missions since the mid-1970s, found one company that would do the testing for $200 per test, Sykes said.
But Sykes calculated that regular testing for a year would cost more than $500,000, a cost the institute couldnβt bear.
Last week, Sykes met with people from CVS Pharmacy about a workplace testing program, but the cost was still a prohibitive $170 per test.
He was told results typically would be available in two to four days, but a current backlog could delay results for up two weeks; CVS recently said due to a backlog it may take 6 to 10 days to get results.
Sykes said the federal government needs to step in to provide mass, rapid testing across the population, citing a Harvard study that found the U.S. needs to be conducting more than 20 million tests per dayΒ β with Arizona doing more than 400,000 tests a day β to get a handle on the pandemic.
βThere will be no solution that is commercial because thereβs no way to scale it up,β he said, noting that even a cost of $50 per test would be problematic for the institute.
New test available
ARCpoint Labs of Tucson, part of a franchised chain of labs that have specialized in workplace drug tests, is offering the first federally authorized, rapid test for COVID-19 antigens, molecular structures that appear during an active infection.
The tests β offered by appointment only β use a nasal swab sample to accurately determine the presence of COVID-19 antigens in about 15 minutes, while symptomatic patients await results in their cars, said Wendell Long, CEO of ARCpoint Labs of Tucson.
The antigen tests donβt come cheap, at $125 a pop, but Long said itβs worth it for some employers to clear critical workers and for people who need to certify they are COVID-19-free before traveling, for example.
In April, ARCpoint began offering a finger-prick blood test for COVID-19 antibodies, which appear after an infected person recovers.
Antibody tests have prompted criticism because, while antibodies generally indicate an immune response to disease, scientists donβt yet know to what extent patients with COVID-19 antibodies are immune.
ARCpoint changed its marketing materials to delete claims about how the antibodies signal an immunity to the disease, and the company is still performing the antibody tests.
