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Law360 (October 1, 2020, 10:58 AM EDT) -- Employers that learn a worker has died after catching COVID-19 on the job have eight hours to report that fatality to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal workplace safety watchdog said in new guidance released Wednesday.
The Labor Department's workplace safety arm advised employers Wednesday that they must inform the agency about COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths among their workforce.
Echoing existing regulations on workplace fatalities, OSHA said an employer must report a worker's COVID-19 death if it occurred within 30 days of that employee's exposure to the virus on the job.
Once company leaders become aware that the employee died from COVID-19 after coming in contact with the virus at work, they have eight hours to let OSHA know too.
"If an employer learns that an employee died within 30 days of a work-related incident, and determines afterward that the cause of the death was a work-related case of COVID-19, the case must be reported within eight hours of that determination," OSHA said.
The requirements for hospitalizations are less stringent, as the agency said businesses only need to report that an employee has been hospitalized with a COVID-19 infection if they were exposed to the virus at work within a 24-hour period.
The agency said once the employer connects those dots — that a worker has been hospitalized with COVID-19 because they came in contact with the virus while at work the day before — they then have 24 hours to report the situation to OSHA.
"If an employer learns that an employee was in-patient hospitalized within 24 hours of a work-related incident, and determines afterward that the cause of the in-patient hospitalization was a work-related case of COVID-19, the case must be reported within 24 hours of that determination," the agency said.
While the timelines mirror OSHA's standing reporting regulations on workplace illnesses and injuries, the mandate that COVID-19 hospitalizations must occur with a day of workplace exposure to be reportable conflicts with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said about the amount of time it takes for symptoms of the infection to appear.
A person likely won't show symptoms within a day of contracting the disease, as the CDC says that symptoms usually appear between two days and two weeks after someone is exposed.
A spokesperson for OSHA could not immediately comment on the discrepancy.
The agency had previously released guidance on reporting workplace-related COVID-19 hospitalizations and fatalities that didn't specify how soon after a work exposure the incident had to occur to trigger the reporting requirements, but it took that advice down in late July without explanation.
As a result of Wednesday's update, the agency also noted that it has withdrawn its citation against Georgia-based Winder Nursing Inc., which it had accused of failing to report the hospitalizations within the statutorily mandated time period and proposed a $6,500 fine for the alleged violation.
--Editing by Rebecca Flanagan.
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