Employers and employees alike are facing the fact that
Instead, COVID continues making its way through the greek alphabet, with the omicron variant now accounting for 73% of cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In total, over 50 million Americans have tested positive for COVID, and over 800,000 people have died.
“Unfortunately, the behavioral changes of individuals, such as not wearing masks and not social distancing after mandates had fallen away, increases the likelihood of transmission,” says Dr. Anthony Harris, an expert in infectious diseases as well as the CEO and medical director at HFit Health, an occupational medicine services company. “We were already seeing spikes in COVID-19 cases pre-omicron, and omicron is increasing its speed.”
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Research from Johns Hopkins shows that daily cases begin to rise again after October by 12%. Now, data shows that daily cases are up to nearly 127,000, a substantial increase from the 70,000 mark the U.S saw in November.
With lives on the line, how can the workforce endure this next wave in COVID? Employee Benefit News spoke with Dr. Harris to learn more about the omicron variant, COVID workplace policies and the future of work.
How will the omicron variant impact the U.S. in the coming weeks?
Unfortunately, the omicron variant is likely going to mean that we're going to have to revert back to days of old, and by days of old, I mean policies that we had in place last year during the beginning and middle parts of this pandemic. omicron is highly infectious, with over 30 mutations — that means it's really effective at infecting us. Every 1.2 days, the number of omicron infections double in a particular geographic area, compared to 1.5 days for Delta.
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The variant’s ability to escape our immune system is also quite concerning — we've seen reinfection rates of COVID-19 go up because of omicron. That is concerning because we already have a high rate of breakthrough infections, just with Delta. Now we’re seeing that up to nearly 70% of individuals can be reinfected symptomatically with COVID-19 as our vaccine efficacy wanes over time, which is a period of about six months. That's why the booster’s importance has been emphasized in the U.S. and beyond.
What should employers do to ensure their employees are part of a safe workplace?
We know there is a New York mandate that says vaccination or nothing in the workplace — there’s no option for testing. The federal ETS, or the COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard, says that you can still test on a weekly basis if you're not electing to be vaccinated as an employee. But regardless of what happens from a legalistic or political stance, the best practice that will help companies maintain their workforce during these times of difficulty is a policy of protectionism.
These policies will be something that can be taken in steps. The first step is to mandate masks. The second step is to get back to social distancing and enforce hand hygiene. Then, if there's enough willpower and enough concern around keeping the workforce safe, a vaccine mandate or a testing regimen would be productive in helping minimize the potential for spread in the workplace. We also may be getting back to symptom tracking, which means regardless of your vaccination status, we're going to have you do the symptom screening on a daily basis to prevent people from coming to work sick.
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Still, getting back to those kinds of policies will not be an easy road. Nonetheless, anecdotally we've already seen employers shut down an entire part of their manufacturing facility because 40 individuals became positive from one person showing up to work ill.
That being said, should employers turn to remote work if possible?
It’s estimated that in some cases, 40% of the workforce may not go back to a centralized location in the future. The reason why is multifactorial, with the obvious reason being to minimize risk of transmission, for not just COVID but also the flu and cold.
Beyond remote work, what else is set to permanently change in the workplace?
There is a likelihood that what it means to be fully vaccinated will be redefined to mean two jabs and a booster — this will get your efficacy back to the 90th percentile in the prevention of infection and transmission. But we'll likely see people who are vaccinated in the workplace say that they’re not getting a booster, and they will need some type of routine surveillance testing. Those who do get boosted may have to get boosted again and again.
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We're also going to see a culture and a workforce accustomed to increases and decreases in risk tolerance — meaning who can be onsite and who needs to remain at home. We've seen that ebb and flow with the different waves that we've endured during each large variant of concern. We're going to continue to see that at least for the next two or three years. If we look at what the World Health Organization had proposed early on and what most experts are saying, COVID is here for at least five years as a pandemic. It may even be here in perpetuity as an endemic type of influence on our cultural existence in the workplace, much like the flu.
Years from now, individuals will be used to having to get their COVID vaccine. We'll also continue to see a culture where if you're coming to work and you're sniffling and sneezing, you're going to get strange looks from your coworkers.
