On April 21, 2022, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (“Cal/OSHA”) Standards Board adopted the fourth iteration of its COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”). Sheppard Mullin previously wrote about the proposed revisions to the current ETS here, which were adopted without substantive changes. The revised ETS will become effective once approved by the Office of Administrative Law, which should occur by May 5, 2022, and the revised ETS will remain in effect until December 31, 2022.
Updates to Cal/OSHA’s FAQ guidance on the ETS should be published soon. One area that Cal/OSHA has indicated it will address in its guidance is the interaction between the ETS and the California Department of Public Health’s (“CDPH”) recently updated isolation and quarantine guidance. Under the new ETS, close contacts are no longer excluded from the workplace. Instead, the ETS merely instructs employers to review current CDPH guidance and to develop and implement policies to prevent transmission by close contacts. The revised ETS also removed specific return-to-work criteria for close contacts, meaning employers simply must follow current CDPH and/or local quarantine guidance. It is unclear if the FAQ guidance will cover whether employers must do more, or can opt to do more, than CDPH or local quarantine guidance requires.
Due to the ETS’ reliance on the CDPH’s guidance, employers should ensure they are familiar with and, at a minimum, following the current guidance....
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