CDC issues expanded reopening guide as pressure for clearer standards grows

Under increasing pressure to provide substantive guidance to businesses poised to reopen and rebound from the pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a 60-page guide believed to be a modified version of a longer document previously barred from publication by the White House. Although the CDC publication isn't an enforceable, mandated health order, it contains the most detailed recitation yet of steps healthcare systems, communities, and certain businesses can follow to stem the expansion of COVID-19.

What employers can expect

Employers are likely to be disappointed in the CDC guide, as the bulk of it is devoted to reciting the agency's past and current efforts regarding surveillance systems, healthcare system capacity, guidance on contact tracing provided to state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments, and tools to assist states, counties, facilities, and industries in responding to outbreaks in nursing homes, prisons, and homeless shelters.

Only in its final 20 pages does the CDC guide turn to measures aimed at "keeping people safe." But even there, the guide—ostensibly intended as a supplement to its recently issued reopening guidance—devotes most of its detailed counsel to childcare programs, schools and day camps, and mass transit.

Employers will want to focus on the extensive and prescriptive measures for dealing with "workers at high risk" and "Interim Guidance for Restaurants and Bars." In that section, you will finally find "a roadmap for preparing and maintaining a functioning business in the midst of an active pandemic."