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Steps to build a COVID-19 recovery plan

A webinar sponsored by the American Amusement Machine Association addressed all the issues involved in preparing a COVID-19 recovery plan.

Image courtesy of iStock

April 22, 2020 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

When it comes time to reopen your business after the COVID-19 shutdown, will you be ready? Do you know how to make sure employees and customers are safe? Will your sanitation practices protect against virus recurrences? Will they meet new health and safety regulations?

A Tuesday webinar sponsored by the American Amusement Machine Association addressed all these issues in the first of a series of COVID-19 recovery webinars.

Presenter Bruce Groves, president and CEO with Emilcott Associates Inc., a provider of environmental health and safety services, observed at the outset that the COVID-19 pandemic is emerging from the alarmist stage — dominated by government officials — to a period where industrial hygienists are offering insight on how to function safely during the pandemic.

"It's going to be a big commitment on everyone's part, the employees as well as management," said co-presenter Paul Migliore, director at BELFOR Restoration, a property restoration service.

OSHA offers guidance

Groves pointed to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Infectious Dose White Paper that addressed levels of exposure to infectious disease. The paper did not establish a minimum acceptable risk level for infectious disease, he said. However, the strategy when disinfecting a virus is to reduce its dose to an acceptable level.

OSHA has also released a COVID-19 guideline that ranks different types of jobs by risk level, Groves said. He said the amusement industry jobs are low risk.

"We're not dealing with very high exposures in the group that I'm talking to," he said. "It is a low-risk exposure to this virus." Health care, by contrast, is a high risk category.

OSHA does not require recording illnesses for jobs that are not high risk, Groves said. He recommended his listeners against recording illnesses as occupational injuries.

Prepare a plan

Businesses should develop a plan to manage their workforce classifying work functions during the pandemic, he said. A big part of the COVID-19 recovery is adhering to aggressive health and safety protocols.

"Continual communication is important," he said.

Requiring employees to report symptoms is important, as is temperature screening, he said.

It is also important to reinforce best practices outside of the workplace.

Mandatory versus voluntary measures

In some workplaces, employees are required to wear protective masks. Groves said this mandate has been controversial since it requires employers to follow certain rules.

If an employer requires employees to wear masks, they must follow OSHA standards for fit testing, medical surveillance and a written program that Groves said can be quite cumbersome.

If the policy is voluntary, however, these standards need not be followed.

Mandatory use of respiratory protection similarly carries OSHA respiratory protection standards.

"It does a very nice job of filtering out the viruses," he said of N5 masks. An N95 mask removes particles from the air that are breathed through it. These filter out at least 95% of 0.3-micron particles. "It is not 100%," he said.

Surgical masks, by contrast, are not designed for use as particulate respirators. 

Screen employees

Migliore addressed the need to screen employees. This includes asking them if they have been exposed to an infected person, if they have had any symptoms. It also includes checking their temperature.

It is also advisable to have self sanitation stations with wipe dispensers, he said. The EPA has a list of disinfectants.

"The customers as well as your employees can self sanitize on an ongoing basis," he said.

Future regulations, which are as yet unknown, will also impact daily sanitation practices, he said.

"It's going to be a rushed process because it's an ever changing," he said, referring to regulations and new studies. "You want to document that process with a check list."

Having a hygienist certify your actions is advisable since it can limit a company's liability, he said.

To this point, Groves warned there are lot of companies marketing deep cleaning services that need to be vetted because the market has grown so suddenly. 

Defensive cleaning

Migliore expanded on cleaning tasks.

Daily deep cleaning of COVID-19 impacted areas and continual wipe down of machines will be necessary. 

"What you need to do is use a processor or an agent that's going to melt that fat and enable you to kill the virus," he said.

"You're going to clean first to remove soil and dirt," he said. "You want to effectively be able to get to those viruses and dissolve that fat layer to kill the virus. Then you disinfect to kill the virus on the surface."

"You want to keep that surface wet based on the dwell time for the agent you're using," he said, which can be from one minute to seven minutes.

After removing the soil and dirt, disinfect the surfaces to kill the viruses. COVID-19 survives three hours for fabrics and up to 72 hours on plastics.

Asked about electrostatic sprayers, Migliore said he is using them after the wipe down, but spraying must take place in an empty facility.

Asked if UV lighting is effective, Groves said it is. Research is needed on how much time an area needs to be exposed to kill the virus on a certain area. "It does work," he said.

Asked how long a disinfectant works on a surface, Migliore said some products claim to work for certain time periods, but whether they work as claimed is still open to research.

Industry specific protocols?

One listener suggested having industry specific protocols for sanitation, Groves said there is precedent for this in other industries. In one industry, an association established standards that eventually became adopted by the government. He said this could preempt unpopular mandates. He said the construction industry currently has a virus protection program.

Asked if density of players being proximate to each other in an amusement center will be mandated, Groves said what happens with bars and restaurants will be instructive. Bars are currently under the most scrutiny at present.

"Where that goes is going to be parallel (to) policies for people gathering around machines to have fun," Groves said.

For an update on the coronavirus pandemic's impact on the kiosk industry, click here. 

About Elliot Maras

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Elliot Maras is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. He brings three decades covering unattended retail and commercial foodservice.