We can of course rely on the advice of others - which we would of course expect to be supported by objective factual information. But ultimately it is our responsibility to do what is required under the legislation and the decision rests on our shoulders.We should also always be prepared to question.

For example take this from Min of health "People who, due to the nature of their job, may be unable to maintain more than 1 metre contact distance from people with potential COVID-19 symptoms – facemasks and gloves are recommended when this contact is likely to occur."

WHO (who I would suggest is a higher authority, but no expert on my workplace) say "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection."

There is a big difference between ';1m contact " and "taking care of".

Just as well we have an Act where we can each go throughout the required steps and not rely on generic advice.

Hi Matt
I haven't delved into the definition of "Community transmission". Whatever it is, at 2% it is obviously very low.

When I say "none" I don't mean absolute zero . I mean about 25 in say a 1.1 million people (as at yesterday) which is close enough to zero for me.

(As an aside, about 555,000 Nz'ers carry norovirus a year - and we do absolutely zero about that. And that's a killer)

I disagree - I think it is quite clearly not reasonably foreseeable that a SARS person would visit my workplace. That's based on a ordinary person with average intelligence (I know - some will question me on that front) or using a "based on my knowledge and experience" in identifying communicable disease' test. At this point I have separated out the foreseeablity of the risk and the foreseability of the consequence (but a quick glance over suggests serious consequence is nil - especially in the context of time lost)

There is quite simply not enough people around to make the risk foreseeable. Sure if I turbo charge my imagination I might create a scenario where that might be foreseeable. I am of course open to suggestions on how it is foreseeable - but "reasonable" is the base line

Ah yes. Best I put them into my assessment

asymptomatic people - can't identify what can't be seen (I'll make a note of them - makes on site thermal checking and form filling totally pointless)

Other neighboring DHB's
DHB 1 = 1 case in past 14 days (none in past 5 days)
DHB 2 = 3 cases in past 14 days (1 in past 5 days)
DHB 3 = 4 cases in past 4 days (none in past 5 days)

That's the whole island now assessed.

Even less chance of these or related people coming to my work

All in all, remain hazard free.

Excellent - back to work we go!!

We are now 21 days into Isolation so time to look at the Risk Assessment again. The risk being the SARS-CoV-2 Virus which we are essentially only able to identify through finding an infected person

It is quite clear we are now, subject to continued trend over the next week, at Safety Level One. And on this basis we, as employers and Health and Safety professionals, should be encouraging a proportional response and not investing one more second of time or one more dollar on this issue.

An outrageous claim you may say. But lets look at the data.

NZ employers, employees, government and society were quite happy to operate at Level One (“Disease Is Contained”) until 21 March when we hit 24 new daily confirmed cases. So it stands to reason that an environment of less than 24 new daily confirmed cases is the “Safe Zone”

If we look at the data we entered the Safe Zone on 7 April. If we allow 1 - 14 day (mostly around 5 days – Source = WHO) incubation period and remain under 24 new daily cases quite obviously this thing is contained if we remain in Zone One by 21 April at the latest.

Zone Two is a Zone where we all thought daily new confirmed cases between 24 and 54 was an area in which the “Disease is contained but risks of community transmission is growing”. We have been trending down since 25 March – so clearly the risk is reducing, not increasing. So no need to be at Level 2.

Now, you might say we are only in the Safe Zone because we are in Isolation. But again look at the data. We operated in Zone 2 and 3 and there was no exponential increase in daily cases. We were all roaming free when we hit 80 Daily cases. Apparently each of these people ought to have passed it on to three people so we should have seen 240 Daily cases and then increases until at least the 14 incubation period had passed. Didn’t happen.

Essentially no risk because we are in the previously established Safe Zone

These numbers are very important because they give us the basis of known risk rather than imagined risk. And as A PCBU we must manage these risks, as far as is reasonably practicable so these risks don't create health and safety to any person associated with our workplace.

And where this is critically important is that this doesn't mean preventing illness which can be a risk to the health of a person. Its also about related things that might also affect the health of a person. Time to think if our management is a greater risk than the virus risk itself. But more on that later

Here is the data – Source = Min Of Health.

Wow - that is quite the achievement. Well done to all

An interesting document Chris. But I would have thought it would be a "draft" pending more information on just what the risk environment looks like moving out of Level 4.

My understanding is that the Alert Levels are Alert Levels - Increasing. That is there is an increasing risk of virus exposure.

It is to me conceivable that we will have a new set of Alert Levels - Decreasing after 22 April.

For example Alert Level Two - Increasing is
Risk assessment
- High risk of importing COVID-19 OR
- Increase in imported cases OR
- Increase in household transmission OR
- Single or isolated cluster outbreak.

Alert Level two - Decreasing may be
Risk assessment
- Very low risk of importing COVID-19 OR
- Decrease in imported cases OR
- Decrease in household transmission OR
- Single or isolated cluster under control.

We seem to be close to a revised Alert Level one. Increasing was:
Risk assessment
- Heightened risk of importing COVID-19 OR
- Sporadic imported cases OR
- Isolated household transmission associated with imported cases.

Decreasing could be:
Risk assessment
- Minimal risk of importing COVID-19 OR
- Virtually no imported cases OR
- very few Isolated household transmissions.

Its still too early too say but the last couple of days has seen less than 10 new cases a day. Of these 1, maybe 2 are related to importation and we can expect these numbers to drop. We arent really at level 3 any more - which is
Risk assessment
- Community transmission occurring OR (seems to be more close contact transmision)
- Multiple clusters break out. (Currently 15 clusters and we may be close to max cluster)

So it is conceivable that by 23 April there are no new cases a day and havent been for a week or so. Which suggests a risk of around zero. And therefore much closer to Alert Level One than Alert Level Two

Sorry Rachel. I'm confused. I thought you were after information on distancing during an evacuation.

The economic risk is a whole different story. $200,000,000,000 cost/lost and we couldn't save the lives of 5 elderly frail people.

If you are in food manufacturing don't you already have protocols for dealing with infectious diseases?

Which only exacerbates the problem. By having "live with someone" the numbers are essentially doubling. The weirdness of the number is brought into stark reality when we consider to get a test you have to show symptoms - so therefore ought to be considered a "probable"

If I put my Tin Foil hat on, I'd suggest the only reason for the "probables" is to bolster the number sto support the narrative.

Lets look at the factual situation today.
Remember the original risk assessments. We were told by the experts and modlers this virus spreads at an exponential rate ( 1 person to three, those three to another three each and so on and so one.) We were told it is highly contagious and our hospitals won't cope. We need to "Flatten the curve"

Two weeks into lock down, with all the additional testing we should be at peak cases. We have had two weeks for those infected on day -1 to do all their spreading of germs and for those affected to display
and get tested and confirmed. The numbers ought to show we are at the top of the mountain and form here on the "curve" should start to happen.

But it simply hasn't happened. But by using "probables" we can give the illusion that we have a bigger problem than is actually the case.

To get to where we are today think it is more likely the original risk assessment models were wrong rather than good risk management.

You probably heard me from where you are!

I keep going back to the basic question "what is the risk?" (And it is frustrating the heck out of me that no-one seems to be doing this and going straight to "catastrophe". If you don't understand the risk you can't even being to think about how to manage it.

By the time we are allowed back to work there will be bugger all virus around. (And this has been the case from day one)

And if it is, as proven by the data, bugger all will happen.

And even if it does happen not much harm will come form it.

As an aside I now have 2 "but for Covid risk Management" deaths and 1 x Covid death.

So I put it to you - are you causing more problems from a solution than what the problem actually causes.

Aaron. I have a great deal of difficulty with "probables" I find that people tend to treat Probable like a rubber band and stretch things out to as far as the "catastrophic" end of the continuum as they can.

For some reason that I havent been able to fathom it strikes me that we like to catastrophise things. We dwell on the extreme and we do this in our risk assessments. And so it is with this topic - I just can't work out why "probables" are being reported - they are grossly distorting the public's view on risk.

I havent tracked probables but what I find fascinating is that the "probables" don't turn into "confirmed". So its a totally misleading and unhelpful statistic.

The cynic in me thinks that reporting is deliberately designed to instil fear and thus compliance. Look at these two charts. One is the media reporting Covid. The second is my graph of daily confirmed cases both as at today.

How do we think of "risk" when we have two very different pictures that use essentially the same information

Aarfon
Its a given we can only use the numbers that are available to us. What I am finding is
1) the actual numbers of cases appear to change. I put this down to Min of Health cleansing data after it is first published.
2) if data sources are limited then this will always limit the data results

Since I am one that remains wary of the data sources ( eg Stuff - I steer clear of that source) I am relying on a Min of Health data set. And this is a data set of confirmed cases. Not "probables" - I don't find that type of data very helpful.

As at this afternoon this is what therconfimed case numbers looks like. You'll notice we have never hit 89 cases in a day. The biggest day of cases is 23 March with 80.

We should always be prepared to take data reports at face value and interrogate the numbers.

Heres a chart we are not seeing in the media.

And I have cost of each 2 week sickness saved at around $162,000 per individual.

""If it's not written down, it didn't happen.'". That is an excellent mantra and one I live with constantly. Its not just for Auditors

The trick is not to use it as a job creation exercise - its something you use sparingly and only for those "risky" exercises where a paper trail ends up invaluable.

After reading the above article thought I'd look at the numbers again.

So first off a bit of a back of the envelope model on the basis we do absolutely nothing. Assume 2.5m infections and I get 21,000 deaths which is close to Otago Universities model. Chuck in sick leave for those that get sick. If we do absolutely nothing we end up with a worse case scenario over say a 9 month period.

By doing nothing we end up with a relatively simple system. 21,000 deaths, 1.1m sick in bed. Total costs around $2.6b

Theres a distinction between the worker caring and the employee caring. So I am reminded of Maslow and how we package the message

We can see "accreditation" ticks a few boxes.

Theres likely four parts to your "rule" being something like
- We will only operate plant that is safe to use
- We will only operate plant that meets COF/WOF standards
- We will have the meeting of standards checked
- We will have the meeting of those standards certified by an independent qualified entity.

So you are hopefully still complying with 3/4 of your rule.

You arent really sacrificing or discarding a rule. You are just unable to meet it fully and hopefully you still have safety operating as the main focus.

So no real harm, just how we interpret "rules".

We have a "rule that says only OSH certified operators can use a Foklift inside the premises. We understand that certification process is just a matter of refreshing and assessing competence and we reckon, in the main we can do that because we do it every day. (If a person wasn't competent on the day we wouldn't let them drive) So if we miss a renewal date we don't get stressed and just book a person on the next available course. This gives employees confidence we have a safe process and should WorkSafe get a bit tetchy we reckon we can mitigate any discussion we have with them by showing we are actively taking reasonable steps - even if its not 100%

Hopefully no rules are discarded - we should have identified the useless ones before today. But perhaps an unexpected benefit of Covid is we can really shine the spotlight and get full buy in on the useless rules.

Just another number. As at June 2019 there were 3,960,000 in the NZ working age population

I have done a thread on current risk assessment based on community exposure. From there you can adjust exposure rates to near zero by the time we return to work.

I guess people are aware that you cannot discriminate against a person because of a disability which includes physical illness.

If a person turns up with a "temperature" and you have no idea what has caused it what are you going to do?

Hi Nadine
I am not the best person to ask about compliance - because I believe we do things for the right reason and compliance follows.

I also hold the view meetings must have agenda items and every agenda item has an outcome assigned to a person with a deadline for getting something beneficial done.

Mix that with my view that most things we do must have a "proportional response". That is, if it is important we do it, do it straight away and get the right person to do it. If its a "nice to have" in today's situation it simply gets put aside.

And the next step from the proportional response is that managers MUST step up and make sure their critical safety responses are being followed. So no need for meetings about that.

As for compliance risk, I would say there is next to 0% chance of Worksafe investigating any complaint that an essential employer is not holding Safety meetings. They must have much, much more important things to do.

Much more important to set up a communication lines to quickly resolve risk management breaches that could lead to major harm. Which should, theoretically be business as usual