Let me applaud you for attempting to make workplaces safer from respiratory illness while lessening some of the onus previously placed on employers during the height of the pandemic. Thank you for differentiating what is required based on vaccinated vs. unvaccinated/at risk employees and for wording this regulation in a manner that recognizes that “one-size does not fit all”.

However, I do see room for improvement. Some of the mandates seem necessary now, but may not be so after COVID-19 waned (as we hope it does). For instance, we currently would want an employee with a fever, malaise, and respiratory symptoms to have a negative COVID PCR before returning to work, but what about the future when the COVID incidence is negligible? Before February 2019 if a patient presented with those symptoms during the summer months, we would not perform a rapid flu test due to the low incidence of infection during the summer. Will employers have to screen their employees in a mixed risk setting in perpetuity? By adding a line in the regulation that would define the minimum incidence rate threshold at which the regulation would be enacted/enforced, VOSH would reduce confusion in the future.