Contact tracing is not going well. That’s what Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said a June interview with CNBC. Though long considered a staple of pandemic-fighting policy, most (if not all) states are struggling with implementing robust contact tracing—and that’s a problem. Knowing who’s been exposed is crucial to stopping COVID-19. When contact tracing fails, states can’t help exposed citizens take steps to prevent further spread. The federal government knows this. State governments know this. So why are they having so many problems?

Issues in the States

One of the biggest problems appears to be the simplest: understaffing. Health experts recommend governments employ roughly 30 contact tracers for every 100,000 residents—a number many states (including the hardest hit) have failed to reach. Take Florida, for instance: currently leading the world in new cases, the state has only reported hiring between 1,600 and 2,300 contact tracers, well below the recommended 6,450. As a result, many Floridians who tested positive have reported not hearing from contact tracers for as long as 3 months.

However, understaffing isn’t the only problem—even when contact tracers reach out to residents, they often have problems getting a response. In Louisiana, only 59% of positive residents have responded to contact tracers since mid-May. In Rockland County, New York, officials issued nine subpoenas to residents who attended a party where the host had tested positive. The subpoenas, which carried hefty fines for failure to respond, were issued after the residents refused to cooperate with contact tracers, ducking calls and refusing to answer questions when they did pick up. The recipients responded soon after the subpoenas were issued.

Beyond the States: Issues in Industry

While the situation in Rockland was extreme, it highlights the seriousness of America’s contact tracing problem. As other countries have used contact tracing to get cases under control, America has struggled to do the same. These issues extend beyond the public sector, too—they’ve impacted workplace health. Because state and local governments are failing to inform people when they may have been infected, many employees have turned to their administrators to inform them when a coworker has fallen sick.

However, companies have not always been reliable on this front. Amazon, for example, has routinely failed to tell employees when their colleagues have fallen sick, leading to tensions between workers and management. Many facilities have had walkouts over lack of communication, and workers at Amazon’s JFK8 facility in Staten Island are even suing to force the company to be more thorough in their contact tracing efforts. As businesses resume normal operations, nearly half of workers have concerns about catching the Coronavirus in the workplace. So what can companies do to make them feel more secure?

What to Do

The first step toward ensuring a safe and comfortable work environment is simple: clear communication. Employees want to be told about recent cases in the workplace. Telling employees when someone has fallen ill—especially when they may have had prolonged contact with them—is crucial to keeping a happy work environment in the COVID-19 era. Another is maintaining a flexible absence policy. Sick employees should stay home and, when possible, potentially exposed employees should quarantine.

To identify exposed employees, many companies have taken to their own contact tracing. A recent report by consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that 46% of companies plan to perform in-house contact tracing when they return to work, but the way will do so varies. Some plan to dedicate a team to identify and isolate sick or potentially exposed employees; others are taking a more decentralized approach. However companies choose to contact trace, they should be careful to follow best practices. 

The most basic rule of contact tracing is to actually talk to sick workers. One reason why Amazon’s Staten Island workers decided to sue the company is that their contact tracing was insufficient; rather than interviewing sick workers, Amazon used security footage to identify close contacts where they could. Some workplaces have also turned to more high-tech solutions. While phone apps have mostly proven to be unreliable, there are a few more advanced solutions that use independent hardware to track workplace contacts more accurately. Many companies have developed solutions that use ultra-wideband and RFID technology to accurately monitor distancing while also recording close contacts. Solutions like these automate contact tracing, minimizing the amount of labor necessary to conduct it.

Conclusions

When returning to work, it’s important to take steps to protect employee’s health. Though just one precaution, in-house contact tracing can improve the safety of the workplace dramatically. Whether manual or automated, contact tracing helps keep employees’ health safe and peace of mind secure. We recommend every company invest in some form of contact tracing when reopening the workplace.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced many companies to partially close or suspend operations entirely. These shutdowns are not limited to restaurants and bars, despite their increased risk and publicity. Self-enforced, as well as government-mandated shutdowns, can force any business to close. No business is immune, as a large outbreak or even a few positive test results could lead to a coronavirus-related business closure.

What Causes a Company to Close?

There are three common types of shutdowns related to the coronavirus: health department shut-downs, union-driven closures, and self-enforced closures. The first type of shutdown is a health department closure. This type of closure is often the most damaging and high-profile. Plus, it can lead to weeks of lost productivity. For example, the Los Angeles Department of Public Health ordered the Los Angeles Apparel factory to close on June 27 after they found the company violated public health measures, including failing to ensure social distancing and neglecting to provide adequate physical barriers between employees. This inaction contributed to 300 positive coronavirus cases and four employee deaths. The factory must remain closed until the company submits a written Coronavirus preparedness plan and receives approval from the Department of Public Health. While these shutdowns are uncommon, they cause a substantial impact on production.

Employees or unions can also drive shutdowns, usually when workers feel misled about the number of cases in the workplace or feel their employers are not valuing their safety. For instance, in tandem with LA Health Department Investigation, the Garment Workers Center, a workers’ advocacy group, also publicized the unsafe working conditions. Employee-driven measures have also been prominent in the film industry. On June 15th, SAG-AFTRA issued a “do not work” order for a specific production. The union alleged that the producers were not following LA County and SAG-AFTRA guidelines for the Coronavirus.

Finally, the most common type of closure is a self-regulated closure. For instance, in the automobile manufacturing industry, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Fiat, and Nissan, among many others, shut down their production lines the week of May 18, with closures ranging from a few days to a few weeks. Reasons for closing differed, but many manufacturers cited health concerns, the need for deep cleaning, and positive coronavirus test results. Self-enforced closures were also common in the food industry, especially in the meat processing sector. Closures could occur when one employee tested positive, such as at Borden Dairy on May 25, or after 669 workers tested positive, which occurred at the Tyson Foods plant in Dakota City, Nebraska. These self-enforced shutdowns may represent the tip of the iceberg, as there could be many more shutdowns that were not publicized. If companies do not self-enforce, they may risk the development of new infections as well as greater damage to productivity and reputation.

What are the Consequences of a Coronavirus Business Closure?

The consequences of shutting down production are profound. The company must halt days of production, often while keeping workers on the payroll. Employers must also deep clean the facility, and develop new procedures to protect workers and prevent future outbreaks. Additionally, an unproductive workforce and inactive machinery lead to a deviation from the company’s normal operating capacity.

Conclusions

A coronavirus outbreak can occur at any company – large or small. Company executives need to be proactive and come up with a contingency plan in advance of a worker getting sick. There may be a future conflict between staying open and valuing public health. Closing may become politicized, thus putting companies into a difficult position as they navigate potential options. Companies operating in multiple states may find that some of their facilities close as others stay open, furthering minimizing production capacity. But, planning ahead and ensuring workers are protected mitigates some of the cost of future closures.

A company with aggressive social distance monitoring and contact tracing capacity can mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. It can ensure that exposed workers and their close contacts are quarantined, thus protecting workers’ health while preventing a complete factory shutdown. In addition, regulatory compliance agencies will recognize that the company has the processes in place to manage an outbreak effectively. Therefore, proactive companies can avoid a government-sanctioned closure. As the pandemic continues to progress, companies must protect workers’ safety in order to continue production.

If you live in an urban area, chances are that you are continuously bathing in variety of WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular wireless signals without which modern living is unimaginable. If we could see beyond frequencies of light, we will be blinded by such EM radiation.

If your workplace employs wireless location technologies such as active and passive RFID, WiFI or BLE, there are additional sources of such radiation present around you. Should you be concerned?

Awareness and concerns about possible health effects of such radio technologies has been in existence for a long time. The quantity used to measure how much RF energy is actually absorbed in a body is called the specific absorption rate (SAR). In the case of whole-body exposure, a standing human adult can absorb RF energy at a maximum rate when the frequency of the RF radiation is in the range of about 80 and 100 MHz. Because of this resonance phenomenon, RF safety standards are generally most restrictive for these frequencies. UHF RFID, WiFI and BLE technologies operate at much higher frequencies.

The first concern is thermal effect on the human tissues. Studies have shown that environmental levels of RF energy routinely encountered by the general public are typically far below levels necessary to produce significant heating and increased body temperature. Beyond thermal effects, a number of informal studies for most of the radio spectrum have failed to establish a link. However if you are close enough to the transmitting source at certain power levels, you could be exposed to hazardous levels.

According to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the organization with oversight responsibility for RF safety guidelines, devices which emit radio energy must be certified to meet maximum permissible exposure (MPE) requirements, as specified in FCC 1.1310. The limits specified by the FCC vary based on frequency and the power density limits are specified as an average value over a 6-minute time period. The power density limit for the 902-928 MHz band in which UHF RFID operate (defined as the 915 MHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical band) is 0.6 mW/cm². The FCC validates a device using a calculation distance of 20 cm (7.9 in.) and notes RF exposure drops rapidly with distance.

The FCC limits for exposure are based on the effects of tissue heating in behavioral studies in animal subjects and afford the public a margin of safety 50-fold lower than the adverse effect exposure threshold. Other organizations that recommend exposure limits, including the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), have also adopted guidelines consistent with the FCC’s.

The California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) an independent organization, sponsored in part by the state’s major universities and federal laboratories, conducted a data analysis review, titled “Health Impacts of Radio Frequency from Smart Meters” to assess the potential health effects of smart meter operation, that runs on the same frequency spectrum as UHF RFID. Result of their investigation didn’t establish any correlation of RF exposure to human health at the levels allowed by FCC.

In spite of all evidences, there is still a general concern for human safety around radio signals. A fair reason is that the long term effects are yet to be observed by our society considering the proliferation of wireless signals at the current levels is fairly recent in human history.

Keeping this concern in mind, Tagit’s RFID system design includes special assessment of workplace environments near RFID antennas, where continuous exposure at close range to human beings is possible. In such cases, restrictive measures such as including a movement and proximity sensor into design allows powering such antennas only when needed and keeping exposure levels way below the FCC thresholds.