Flexible plan is key to managing a safe return to the workplace

Employers are advised to nominate a lead worker representative to help management and staff collaborate on their Covid plans

Dr Susan Hill and Dr Conor McDonnell, experts in private and public sector occupational health, who have launched McDonnell Hill, a new national occupational health service to support Irish businesses. Photo: Cathal Noonan

Flexible Covid virus management plans will be needed for any safe return to work, but the core messages around 2m social distancing, vigilant hand hygience and coughing etiquette will remain the same.

All of the learnings seem to new and evolving. Awareness of age as a critical factor in Covid-linked mortality has grown considerably since March 2020, when the State's initial Covid protocol was issued. Health experts are examining differences in how the super-contagious Delta variant is spread.

“Covid has changed everything in how we think about a virus,” says Dr Conor McDonnell, founder along with Dr Susan Hill of McDonnell Hill, a recently launched Cork-based national occupational health service. “Sometimes the information is updated far quicker than the public guidance.

“The thing that won't change is the advice on what we call non-pharmaceutical prevention measures. These are the 2m physical distancing, proper hand hygiene, coughing into the elbow and not the hand, having tissues available and disposing of them properly, and proper ventilation.

“What we now know is that age is the single biggest factor with a person's vulnerability to Covid. The risk of dying is far greater for a healthy person aged 60+ versus a person of 20. Add in a medical condition like diabetes, that will, of course, increase the risk of mortality.” 

 To measure a worker's level of vulnerability to infection, Dr McDonnell uses Covid-Age, a tool widely used in the UK. This tool measures factors including age, sex, ethnicity, and underlying health (comorbidities).

Dr Conor McDonnell and Dr Susan Hill, of  occupational health specialists McDonnell Hill, who use  Covid-Age, a tool widely used in the UK. This tool measures factors including age, sex, ethnicity, and underlying health (comorbidities).

A person's vulnerability is reduced by any personal immunity acquired through previous infection and/or vaccination. This tool always adds a number of years to your actual age, effectively quantifying your risk level as your 'Covid-Age'.

“If you're working in a supermarket, in a hairdressing salon or in the health service, you'll be in greater contact with people. Your vulnerability level, your Covid-Age, becomes a big issue for you,” he said. “If the viral prevalence, i.e. the number of circulating cases, is lower, then your risk is lower.

“How do you compare the same level of social distancing in a call centre versus someone working in a restaurant? If a person says they are at risk, how does the employer assess that risk?

“The vaccines are voluntary. If the employer offers a vaccine, a person may say that that they are more vulnerable than others to the impacts of that vaccine. How does an employer assess that? You may have people out of work because of their heightened anxieties around the virus.” 

 As some workplaces start to reopen, employers are advised to nominate a lead worker representative to foster a collaborative approach between management and staff.

Companies should also review their signage on 2m social distancing and their plans for hand hygiene (60% alcohol gels placed at entrances and exits), tissues and their disposal, coughing etiquette etc. Companies should see rapid antigen diagnostic tests as a useful tool, but no more than that.

“All those tests can do is help you to find cases; they're not an answer to everything. You can't look at those tests in isolation, because they don't tell you anything definitive about your workplace. Don't abandon your behaviours around hygiene and 2m distancing,” he said.

McDonnell Hill is currently delivering occupational health solutions to SMEs and large corporations across the country. The company works with a team of occupational health physicians across Ireland, covering case management, pre-employment screening medical assessments and Covid-19 consultancy.

Dr Susan Hill the business owners and managers, in seeking to steer a safe return to the workplace, are facing pressure to ensure they are compliant and meet their health and safety obligations to their employees.

She said: “While Ireland’s vaccination programme has made significant headway, Covid vulnerability risk assessments and risk stratification for certain employees will remain a requirement for many businesses when managing the safe return to work for staff.” 

Remote working is expected to continue for many, but that protracted level of social isolation raises its own issues. Along with the range of anxieties around dislocation, many people are also increasingly “always on”, constantly digitally available.

In April, the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, Leo Varadkar, brought in a new code of practice on the 'Right to Disconnect'. In brief, the employee should have the right to log off outside of their normal working hours, and not be penalised for doing so. The code urges people not to email or call colleagues outside of normal working hours.

“Minister Varadkar was right,” said Dr McDonnell. “We have to respect a person's right to disconnect. We're seeing a rise in things like dry eye syndrome from people being in front of the screen all the time.

“People need to stop and take breaks, walk around. It was easier when you were in the office. You'd come out of a meeting and you'd stop for a chat with someone. You'd have a regular coffee break, some people you'd regularly meet up with.

“Now people are hopping from the 10am video meeting and straight into the next one at 11am. The bigger thing is that no one whose day finishes at 5pm or 6pm should still go back looking at their computer after 7pm.”