COVID-19 A.K.A.THE CORONA VIRUS

It is the middle of July 2020, and if you just crawled out of your bunker after a year long hiatus from humanity, you may be surprised at how much things have changed. First of all, you’re a little early. By most accounts, our novel Corona virus is only 30 to 40% through the population of its favorite host, good ol’ homo sapiens. Second, you’re probably glad you bought those surplus gas masks, as everyone outside is wearing some form of face covering (unless they’re angry about something, in which case the virus leaves them alone in favor of a weaker host). 

Your local buffet is most likely not open, your local warehouse store probably isn’t willing to sell you more than one case of Charmin, your butcher will want 3 times more for a pound of beef than he did last year and you’ll have a 53 minute wait outside the liquor store at a distance of about 6 feet from the next closest human (no rationing of alcohol or nicotine, so stock up before heading back to the bunker). The most annoying thing about this particular global pandemic may be that all of the residents of the shady acres resort you abandoned knowing they’d come to come to their deserved apocalyptic demise, probably haven’t.

All that being said, there is a trend in 2020 that is at least equally as disturbing as the Coronavirus. That is a 44% increase in workplace fatalities in the first half of 2020 compared to the first half of 2019. Two thirds of the population stayed home, 1/3 of the population became “unemployed,” no one was on the roads and the largest workers comp insurer in the state of Utah recorded a 44% increase in workplace fatalities and not one was from coronavirus. For many businesses, a lot of time and effort went into making new coronavirus policy, but perhaps some basic workplace safety practices were overlooked or temporarily put on hold while the novel virus has reigned supreme.

If you feel your business needs to get back on track with safety (or if you need to start building the track), reach out to dcshrm.com and get a whole new outlook on safety in the workplace. We can help you get your safety program back on track with safety topics, quizzes, checklists and policies all sent to your workforce’s mobile phones. Quick, easy, efficient and pandemic compliant in all 50 states.

2020 FATALITY STATISTICS:

33% were due to falls.

55% occurred in construction.

55% were employed by small businesses.

67% occurred between 4/23/2020 and 6/5/2020.

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