Rising cases, and an easily-transmissible variant, have businesses crafting responses to a new stage of the pandemic.
The United States is experiencing a resurgence of new and active COVID-19 cases, which threatens to deflate the prospects for further returns to normalcy later in 2021. The cause of the rising case loads, and resulting strain on medical facilities and personnel, is a Delta variant surge.
Recent projections from the Covid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, a consortium of researchers working in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anticipate cases will steadily increase through the remainder of the summer and well into fall. It’s disappointing news for employers looking to get workers back to the workplace, parents hoping to get their kids back in a school building for the upcoming year, and everyone who is dealing with the fatigue associated with the ongoing struggle.
With vaccination rates against the virus stuck on a plateau of roughly 50 percent in the U.S., and with many areas of the world well below that, COVID-19 has had a chance to gain a foothold and mutated into a new kind of virus. News is seemingly breaking daily about the characteristics of the mutation, and the incoming, expected Delta variant surge. For instance, in late July, it was reported that the CDC had internal documents indicating the Delta variant is more transmissible than the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, the seasonal flu, and smallpox. The documents also stated the variant is at least as contagious as chickenpox.
The Delta variant, a strain of the original COVID-19 virus, was first identified in India in December 2020. It has swept rapidly across the world since. The first Delta case in the U.S. was diagnosed in March, and Delta is now the dominant strain of the virus in the U.S.
The Delta variant needs to be accounted for, especially by businesses that may have recently just re-established return-to-work policies after pandemic restrictions across the country were lifted or alleviated this spring. Here are four things your company can do right now — including utilizing professional, consistent cleaning and disinfecting services — to prepare.
Make sure your workplace is ready. Contact us for a complete return-to-work checklist.
