We took the precaution and separated our teams into strategic bubbles a month ago and will keep the bubbles until after the omicron peak. Wall mounted thermometers. RAT to monitor

We had best laid plans ready to roll into whatever phase it was at the end of Feb: with bubble groups on different rosters, staggered starts/use of cloak rooms/canteen and separate portaloos/canteens set up for identified close contacts etc. Only for 40% of our staff to go off and attend a 21st party on the last Saturday of Feb. It turned out there were positive cases and household contacts at the party who had not received notification of their status prior to attending. By the end of the week 40% of staff tested positive, it has been a challenging two weeks. Surprisingly we have no medical treatment injuries so far this year and this is very unusual.

Our industry undertakes annual benchmarking, so far we have seen a rise in LTIFR across the board.
At present we don't know if this is because:

• Staff are distracted from their primary safety focus by covid protocols, or are mentally fatigued by the constant messaging.
• Companies have not adjusted for significantly less hours worked due to lock downs.
• Other factors.

Really interesting statistic Stephen Small. As an observation, I see a lot of H&S personnel overcommitting on COVID with other H&S risks taking a "back seat". And H&S personnel are also over-exposed themselves to COVID (doing RATs, managing people taking time off, fit testing) and so sick/ isolating themselves.
As an Occupational Hygienist I worry too about the health risks that we are not monitoring as well as we were. And WorkSafe also having a focus on COVID. But, if its not monitored/inspected/checked, its not done (as they say). Particularly our small to medium size businesses.

And WorkSafe also having a focus on COVID. — Suzanne Broadbent

This is an interesting question for me - should WorkSafe NZ really be so involved in Covid... or to be more specific, is Covid actually an Occupational Health and Safety risk? Because if it is why have other highly infectious disease not been given the same level of occupation H&S risk scrutiny in all/general workplaces that Covid is been given, example being measles (or even seasonal influenza).

Coming back to an organisation's duty to manage the risks created by, or inherent in, their operations so far as reasonably practicable, and given we only have finite resources available to manage all the various risks - over-managing Covid risks will inevitably lead to other risks being under-managed.

Matt you raise a very good question. And one I am sure many don't want to answer.

I don't want to get into the "Covid is just a flu" debate. However if you look at the steps companies have taken to prevent covid harm (essentially for all intents and purposes either nothing to a few days in bed) then it stands to reason exactly the same steps should have been taken years ago for seasonal flu and other severe respiratory type diseases such as RSV. We didn't - other than token Free Flu Jab sessions.

And now we have set the standard for preventing a few few days off work its seems to me we have to keep maintaining that standard for years to come. Which will no doubt keep OSH practitioners employed for some time yet.

And now we have set the standard for preventing a few few days off work its seems to me we have to keep maintaining that standard for years to come. — Andrew

And is that mainly due to H&S yet again being used as the scapegoat for actions taken to manage other business risks - does this leave us with the only two (logical) options being for the majority of businesses to either:

• continue to manage the risk of sickness in the workplace by providing workers who contract a communicable disease sufficient sick leave for the worker to isolate and recover from the disease before returning to work, or
• Admit the response was over-cooked for the business's occupation H&S risk associated with Covid (and that it was primarily done to manage business continuity risks and not for worker / workplace safety)...

Of course I think most will cop-out with the usual "these are/were unprecedented times"...