Hazards

Sacramento, CA — Revisions to California’s emergency temporary standard on COVID-19 have been adopted by the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, ending a tumultuous process that nearly forced fully vaccinated workers to continue following mask and physical distance rules.

Why do individual workers respond to heat so differently?

New York — Fewer than 10% of the estimated 250,000 employees who contracted COVID-19 while on the job last year in New York state filed for workers’ compensation benefits, and fewer than 1% have received a hearing, according to a recent report from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.

Washington — A coalition of 10 aviation industry groups led by Airlines for America, a trade association of U.S. passenger and cargo carriers, is requesting that the Department of Justice “commit to the full and public prosecution of onboard acts of violence” by passengers against airline employees.

Washington — A proposal to “streamline and improve error-correction procedures, queries, and consent requirements” within the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse is among the anticipated agency actions listed on the Department of Transportation’s regulatory agenda for Spring 2021.

Washington — Age-specific efforts aimed at preventing musculoskeletal disorders related to overexertion – a significant cause of MSDs among construction workers in the United States – could help address the problem, researchers from NIOSH say.

Chicago — OSHA has launched a Regional Emphasis Program to address on-the-job noise hazards in the Midwest manufacturing industry.

San Francisco — Worker deaths caused by exposure to methylene chloride are on the rise, according to researchers from OSHA and the University of California, San Francisco, who identified 32 deaths on top of those the Environmental Protection Agency had recently reported over a period spanning nearly four decades.

Washington — OSHA is requesting input regarding its emergency temporary standard on COVID-19 for health care workers.

Stockholm — More than 1 out of 10 health care workers who developed relatively mild cases of COVID-19 were still experiencing at least one moderate to severe symptom eight months later, results of a recent study out of Sweden show.