Last month, the Virginia Occupational Safety and Health (VOSH) Program released its Revised Proposed Permanent Standard for Infectious Disease Prevention of the SAR-CoV-2 Virus that Causes COVID-19.  Vandeventer Black released a summary of those proposed permanent revisions to the temporary standard, which can be found here.

On January 4, 2021, VOSH issued an updated final standard which was approved by the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry’s (DOLI’s) Safety and Health Codes Board with a 9-4 vote on January 13, 2021. This standard is largely the same as December’s proposed standard, but the final approved standards include the following reporting requirement change:

Reporting to VDH. This revision reduces the need to report cases to the Virginia Department of Health (“VDH”) in that employers need only report to VDH when a particular worksite has 2 or more positive cases within a 14 day period, within 24 hours of becoming aware of such cases.  This reporting requirement is down from the need to report single cases.

The standard will not take effect until it has been approved by Governor Ralph Northam.  The Governor has the discretion to make revisions to the standard; however, any revisions will be subject to further consideration by the Board and seem unlikely.