COVID-19 Reopening Guidance Document for Laboratories

AIHA PAT Programs wishes to share new COVID-19 safety guidance document for laboratories.

AIHA, the association for scientists and professionals committed to preserving and ensuring workplace health and safety, has expanded its comprehensive library of Back to Work Safely guidelines with a guidance document for the safe reopening of laboratories amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reopening: Guidance for Laboratories, prepared by the AIHA Laboratory Health and Safety Committee, provides clear and actionable guidance for the safe reopening of laboratory facilities, including measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 and maintain a healthy workplace while resuming or continuing operations.

If you are looking for guidelines for the safe reopening of areas other than the immediate laboratory environment, please visit the Back to Work Safely website, which features expert, industry-specific guidance for both businesses and consumers to reopen and re-engage safely. These guidelines, downloaded more than one million times, are available in both English and Spanish.

We also want to bring to your attention that the Biden Administration has recently issued two documents that might be of interest to you:

• National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness (PDF),
• Executive Order on Establishing the COVID-19 Pandemic Testing Board and Ensuring a Sustainable Public Health Workforce for COVID-19 and Other Biological Threats.

Both speak to the administration’s desire to “enhance laboratory capacity” to improve COVID-19 testing and surveillance. The specifics of the administration’s plans for labs are still being determined and will be released in the near future.