This RNA-containing viral agent (also termed Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS-2) arose in Wuhan City, China presumably on or around December 2019, and has now infected nearly five million people world-wide (see Worldometer).

Countless individuals have suffered illness, loss of income and death due to ignorance about how to prevent transmission of the virus.  Despite warnings about the practice of social distancing, scrupulous hand-cleansing and the wearing of masks, frequently cavalier disregard of these recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have led to the inevitability of lawsuits. 

Do You Have Sufficient Information to Win Litigation Arising from these COVID-19 issues? 

• Clinical laboratory safety: Are laboratory professionals adequately protected on the job? 
• Doctor’s/dentist’s waiting rooms:  Are patients protected from each other?
• Restroom hygiene: Are they being made safe to use without worry from COVID-19?
• Adequacy of personal protective equipment (PPE) for workers: Offices, retail stores, gyms?
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration and COVID-19:  What are the rules beyond PPE?
• What are the classes of PPE and what is recommended for a variety of public situations?
• Note: What is recommended for blood borne pathogens is not necessarily the same for respiratory pathogens, so what changes are needed for COVID-19?
• Restaurants, water parks, playgrounds must be conducive to COVID-19 safety, but are they?
• Businesses or entertainment venues involving animals must be cognizant that COVID-19 is transmissible to cats, dogs, ferrets (and from them to humans) and likely to numerous species not yet investigated and that preventive measures should be taken. What are they?

This list could go on.  However, if you wish to speak to an OSHA-knowledgeable, infectious disease-trained virologist about your client’s concerns, whether it be in a clinical or a business setting, help is available for very general or highly specific conversations about your needs and those of your clients.

Unfortunately, one Harvard University model projects that we may be practicing social distancing until 2024.  If this proves accurate, we need to be prepared for the legal fallout from such a circumstance, because there is absolutely no doubt that it is on the way.

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