Firms lag on worker virus tests

Brandon Hudgins works the main floor at Fleet Feet, a runningshoe store chain, for more than 30 hours a week. He chats with customers, measuring their feet and dashing in and out of the storage area to locate rightsize shoes. Sometimes, clients drag their masks down while speaking. Others refuse to wear masks at all.

So he worries about COVID19. And with good reason. Across the U. S., COVID hospitalizations and deaths are hitting recordshattering new heights. The nation saw 187,428

new cases Thursday alone. In California, COVID case counts are growing at the fastest rate yet.

Unlike in the early days of the pandemic, though, many stores nationwide aren’t closing. And regular coronavirus testing of workers remains patchy at best.

“I’ve asked, what if someone on staff gets symptoms? ‘ You have to stay home,’ ” said Hudgins, 33, who works in High Point, N. C. But as an hourly employee, staying home means not getting paid, he said. “It’s stressful, especially without regular testing. Our store isn’t very big, and you’re in there all day long.”

To the store’s credit, Hudgins said the manager has instituted a lockeddoor policy, where employees determine which customers can enter. They sanitize the seating area between customers and administer regular employee temperature checks. Still, there’s no talk of testing employees for the coronavirus. Fleet Feet did not respond to multiple requests to talk about its testing policies.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance to employers to include coronavirus testing, and it advised that people working in close quarters be tested periodically. However, the federal government does not require employers to offer those tests.

But the board overseeing the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/ OSHA, on Thursday approved emergency safety rules that are soon likely to require the state’s employers to provide coronavirus testing to all workers exposed to an outbreak on the job at no cost to the employees. Testing must be repeated a week later, followed by periodic testing.

California would be the first state to mandate this, though the regulation doesn’t apply to routine testing of employees. That is up to individual businesses.

Workplaces have been the source of major coronavirus outbreaks: a Foster Farms chickenprocessing facility in the Central Valley town of Livingston, grocery stores in Los Angeles, a farmworker housing complex in Ventura County, Amazon warehouses — largely among the socalled essential workers who bear the brunt of COVID infections and deaths.

The U. S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspects workplaces based on workers’ complaints — more than 40,000 of which have been filed with the agency at the state and federal levels, in regards to COVID19.

In California, Cal/ OSHA has cited 54 workplaces for COVIDrelated violations to date, amounting to more than $ 1.5 million in proposed penalties.

Workers “have every right to be concerned,” said Dr. Peter ChinHong, an epidemiologist at UCSF. “They are operating in a fog. There is little economic incentive for corporations to figure out who has COVID at what sites.”

Waiting for symptoms to emerge before testing is illconsidered, ChinHong noted. People can exhibit no symptoms while spreading the virus. A CDC report found that, among people with active infections, 44% reported no symptoms.

Yet testing alone cannot protect employees. While workplaces can vary dramatically, ChinHong emphasized the importance of enforcing safety guidelines like social distancing and wearing face masks, as well as being transparent with workers when someone gets sick.

Molly White, who works for the Missouri state government, was required to return to the office once a week starting in July. But White, who is on drugs to suppress her immune system, feared her employer’s “cavalier attitude toward COVID and casual risk taking.” Masks are encouraged for employees but are not mandatory, and there’s no testing policy or even guidance on where to get tested, she said. White filed for and received an Americans With Disabilities Act exception, which lasts through the end of the year, to avoid coming into the office.

After a cluster of 39 COVID cases emerged in September in the building where she normally works, White was relieved to at least get an email notifying her of the outbreak. A few days later, Gov. Mike Parson visited the building, and he tested positive for COVID19 soon after.

Following pressure from labor groups, Amazon reported in a blog post last month that almost 20,000 employees had tested positive or been presumed positive for COVID19 since the pandemic began. To help curb future outbreaks, the online retailing giant, which also owns Whole Foods, built its own testing facilities, hired lab technicians and said it planned to conduct 50,000 daily tests across 650 sites by this month.

The National Football League tests players and other essential workers daily. An NFL spokesperson said the league conducts 40,000 to 45,000 tests a week through New Jerseybased BioReference Laboratories, though both organizations declined to share a price tag. Reports over the summer estimated the season’s testing program would cost about $ 75 million.

Not all companies, particularly those not in the limelight, have the interest — or the money — to regularly test workers.

“It depends on the company how much they care,” said Gary Glader, president of Horton Safety Consultants in Orland Park, Ill. Horton works with dozens of companies. “Some companies could care less about their people, never have.”

IGeneX, a diagnostic testing company in Milpitas, gets around 15 calls each day from companies across the country inquiring about its employer testing program. The lab works with about 100 employers — from 10person outfits to two pro sports teams — mainly in the Bay Area. IGeneX tests its own workers every other week.

IGeneX offers three prices, depending on how fast a company wants the results: $ 135 for a polymerase chain reaction ( PCR) test with a 36to 48hour turnaround — down to around $ 100 a test for some highervolume clients; oneday testing costs $ 250, and it’s $ 400 for a sixhour turnaround.

Ideally, ChinHong said, public health departments would work directly with employers to administer COVID testing and quash potential outbreaks.

Hudgins, who receives his health insurance through North Carolina’s state exchange, tries to get a monthly COVID test at CVS on his own time.

“I see volumes of people every day, and I think getting tested is the smart and considerate thing to do.” he said in an email.

Hannah Norman writes for Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit news service editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.