More than 40 organizations signed a petition, along with more than 6,300 individuals, urging the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to adopt a permanent standard on COVID-19 in healthcare workplaces as temporary emergency standards are set to expire on Dec. 21, National Nurses United said Dec. 16.
The petition also urges the administration to work "expediently" to issue a separate, broader standard to protect all workers from workplace exposure to COVID-19 and other aerosol transmissible diseases. National Nurses United also asked OSHA to adopt the standard in a Nov. 3 letter.
"OSHA must act swiftly to extend life-saving protections for healthcare workers and to create new COVID-19 safety rules for all workers," said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.
"We're facing a highly contagious new variant and hospitals in many communities are again overwhelmed with COVID-19. We can't afford to let our guard down, because workers and families still face grave risk from a deadly infectious disease."