Do businesses face legal liability when their workers bring COVID-19 home to their relatives? A recent Reuters article says they do.
While worker’s compensation laws usually protect businesses from high-cost lawsuits filed by their employees, relatives of workers can take significant legal action. Esperanza Ugalde died from a COVID-19 infection which she contracted from her husband, an employee of Aurora Packing Company. In response, her daughter filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the business. Similarly, Miriam Alvarez Reynoso sued her husband’s employer after she contracted COVID-19 from him and suffered damage to multiple organs. A private settlement was reached after the lawsuit alleged several ways in which the company failed to take steps to prevent the spread of the virus, including inadequate cleaning.
What Businesses Can Do
The risk posed to small businesses is addressed by Texans for Lawsuit Reform. The group urges companies to take prevention and action seriously during the pandemic. “If an entity has not taken steps to prevent the spread of the virus, it is still open to lawsuits,” states Bill Hammond, CEO of Texas employers for Insurance Reform. “Not only does that protect the public and employees, it strongly encourages businesses and other entities to take this seriously and do the right thing.”
Many government agencies provide standards for preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. Ensuring that cleaning is sufficient to decrease the risk of spreading the virus can be a stressful matter, and having employees clean the workplace without adequate knowledge of proper procedures may be a risk that businesses may not want to take. Consider trusting experts.
How Austin Bio Clean Can Help
The team at Austin Bio Clean has specialized knowledge of how to decontaminate a workplace after COVID-19 virus has entered the premises. While some companies may offer to fog the area to decontaminate, trained and certified biohazard cleanup specialists know that more is necessary. Simply applying disinfectant atop soiled areas will only treat the virus sitting on the top layer while additional infectious material lingers beneath.
Our procedures for treating an area for COVID-19 begin with determining highly trafficked areas and frequently touched surfaces. The soil from these areas and surfaces are firmly wiped away using hospital-grade disinfectants, recommended by the EPA for use against coronaviruses. We will allow these commercial products to stay wet for the appropriate amount of time necessary to deactivate the virus. After cleaning we also apply or fog the area with commercial grade biocide.
Our team takes personal protective equipment (PPE) seriously, using more extensive equipment than what is recommended by the CDC for healthcare professionals. We wear double layer medical-grade gloves, full-coverage clothing intended for protection against pathogens, respirators, and face shields. We follow specific procedures for the removal of PPE to avoid cross-contamination.
If the COVID-19 virus has entered the premises of your business, why take a chance. We are here to help and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Give us a call.
