TAG Updates Workplace Delta Protections Based on New CDC Data

• In today’s Recommendations for Industry, TAG has updated its current thinking and recommendations on necessary risk mitigation measures in the workplace. Read more below.
• When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated, the CDC recently emphasized that wearing a mask to maximize protection against the new Delta variant can prevent possible spreading to others. Wearing a mask in areas that are required by law, regulations, or local guidance should be continued.
• Here’s how schools should handle a Covid-19 outbreak, experts say: the largest step that will be taken by school officials is to reach out to their local health department when a case arises in order to track any close contacts. The steps needed to control a Covid-19 outbreak within a school would be like steps taken for any outbreak of a communicable disease in a school, such as measles. The Delta variant can be as transmissible as chickenpox and one infected person could spread the variant to about five to nine other people on average – whereas, with the original strain of the coronavirus, one infected person could spread it to two to three people on average.
• China orders mass testing in Wuhan as COVID outbreak spreads: The current outbreaks, while still in the hundreds of cases in total, have spread much more widely than previous ones, reaching multiple provinces and cities including the capital, Beijing. Many of the cases have been identified as the highly contagious delta variant that is driving a resurgence in many countries.
• One-third of all COVID cases reported in Florida and Texas; US reaches 70% of partially vaccinated adults: COVID-19 updates Florida broke two records — in cases and hospitalizations — this weekend. Texas now has more total statewide deaths than New York, the early epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. The U.S. reported 599,334 cases in the week ending Sunday. A week earlier, cases numbered 364,123. The nation is now reporting 2,500 deaths per day, according to USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.
• The COVID culture war: At what point should personal freedom yield to the common good? After more than 18 months of a pandemic, with 1 of every 545 Americans killed by COVID-19, a substantial chunk of the population continues to assert their own individual liberties over the common good. COVID-19 is now killing more than 2,000 Americans each week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, with new infections topping 60,000 a day for the first time in more than three months.

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TAG Updates Workplace Delta Protections Based on New CDC Data

Due to the CDC’s new guidance on masking for vaccinated persons and its internal report on the transmissibility of the Delta variant by vaccinated persons, TAG has updated its current thinking and recommendations on necessary risk mitigation measures in the workplace. 

The Delta variant has become the predominant circulating strain of SARS-CoV-2 in the US and many states are experiencing a rate rise in cases.  The new CDC report suggests that the Delta variant can cause illness in fully vaccinated persons and allow them to transmit to others to as many as 9 or 10 other persons.

Although the rate of hospitalization for fully vaccinated persons is still very low in the US and vaccines remain the best tool to prevent severe illness, CDC is now recommending that fully vaccinated persons be tested 3-5 days following close contact with a confirmed case, however a fully vaccinated person does not need to quarantine if they remain free of symptoms.

Due to these changes, TAG now recommends that workplaces reinstitute masking for all employees (fully vaccinated and unvaccinated), regardless of community case rates, until more is definitively known about the transmissibility of the Delta from fully vaccinated persons.

The precautionary measure of universal masking in indoor workplaces is supported by emerging epidemiological data for the Delta variant, and comprehensive air-handling modeling from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  For example, a typical 10,000 square foot office suite could safely support only 23 people for an eight-hour workday if even one of those people were infected with the Delta variant and 50% of the office was fully vaccinated and not wearing masks.  If everyone in the same office were masked, using 3-layer well-fitted masks, the safe occupancy number increases to 204 over the same eight-hour period. 

Thus, during these times of uncertainty and rising case rates, masking provides significant protection in indoor spaces. Additionally, testing access may become more important as cases increase and both unvaccinated and fully vaccinated persons seek testing.

If you would be interested in receiving TAG’s full, updated COVID-19/Delta Risk Calibration Planning Toolkit, please contact us today.

• In last Thursday’s Recommendations for Industry, we discuss CDC’s new guidance for fully vaccinated people to mask indoors in high-risk areas, and mask and be tested if exposed to a person with COVID-19. We also look at TAG’s COVID-19 Risk Matrix to better understand what is happening around the country. Read more here.
• The C.D.C now says fully vaccinated people should get tested after exposure even if they don’t show symptoms. (See our Recommendations for Industry, below, for complete information on this.)
• Mental illness tied to higher risk of COVID hospital care, death | CIDRAP (umn.edu). A study led by researchers from the CEReSS-Health Service Research and Quality of Life Center in Marseille, France consisted of 16 observational studies from seven countries involving 19,086 patients with COVID-19 and mental illness from December 2019 to July 2020. Regardless of the primary medical risk factors for severe COVID-19, patients with mental illnesses were more likely to die of COVID-19 than their peers in pooled crude and adjusted analysis. Patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder had the highest ORs for death, with researchers stating that these patients. may have impaired immune defenses to begin with and suggesting “that other factors lead to this health inequity in patients with mental health disorders, including several factors such as barriers to access to care, social determinants of health, immunological disturbances, and the effects of psychotropic drugs.”
  The study also suggests that improved healthcare staff training on mental illnesses, broader implementation of advanced directives and do-not-resuscitate orders, and removing barriers to obtaining healthcare could improve patient care.
• Cases in Americas, Asia drive latest COVID-19 rise | CIDRAP (umn.edu). With another steady increase in cases last week, the world is now adding more than 500,000 million cases a day, with the more transmissible Delta (B1617.2) SARS-CoV-2 variant now in 132 of the world's 197 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, the WHO's technical lead for COVID-19, said there are marked regional differences and variations by and within countries, warning that deaths were up sharply, rising by 21% compared to the week before.
  Much of the recent rise is driven by substantial illness increases in the WHO's Americas and Western Pacific regions, with a large portion of the spike in deaths from the Americas and South East Asia regions, the WHO said. The global total could pass 200 million cases in the next 2 weeks, it added.
• Natural Immunity After COVID-19 Found Durable and Robust — Precision Vaccinations. The study shows that most convalescent COVID-19 patients mount durable antibodies, B cells, and T cells specific for SARS-CoV-2 up to 250 days. The kinetics of these responses provide an early indication for a favorable course ahead to achieve long-lived immunity. Because the cohort will be followed for 2–3 more years, they can build on these results to define the progression to long-lived immunity against this novel human coronavirus, which can guide rational responses when future virus outbreaks occur.
• S. pole vault champ out of Olympics after positive COVID test (msn.com). A U.S. pole vaulting superstar has tested positive for COVID-19 — sending a slew of Australian athletes into isolation. Sam Kendricks, the reigning world champion and the American record holder, has had to pull out of the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Food Safety/Public Health:

• Multistate E. coli outbreak linked to cake mix | Food Safety News. An ongoing E. coli outbreak affecting 16 people in 12 states has been linked to cake mix. Sick people range in age from 2 to 73 years old, with a median of 13. Seventy-five percent are children under the age of 18. Children are more likely to have a severe E. coli infection. Of 16 people with information available, seven have been hospitalized. One person has developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) but no deaths have been reported.
• Scale of Campylobacter poultry link assessed in UK study | Food Safety News. Chicken has been confirmed as the source of most Campylobacter infections, according to a research report published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the United Kingdom. The aim was to estimate contributions of the main sources to human infection and to identify changes over time. The work by Oxford University also looked at antimicrobial resistance.
• WHO calls for mycotoxin data in some peanuts, cereals and spices | Food Safety News. The first call for information covers aflatoxin in cereals and cereal-based products. This includes maize grain; flour, meal, semolina and flakes derived from maize; husked and polished rice and sorghum grain destined for further processing. Data is also wanted on total aflatoxins in cereal-based foods for infants and young children.
• BrightFarms expands recall of packaged salad greens linked to Salmonella outbreak | Food Safety News. Amid an ongoing outbreak, BrightFarms is expanding a recall of packaged salad greens that were produced in its Rochelle, IL, greenhouse farm and sold in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana and Michigan because of potential Salmonella contamination