All Employees,
Well….One half of 2020 is in the history books as we enter the second half. The hope of the heat of Summer killing off the coronavirus has been destroyed, but despite its ugly resurgence we have been blessed so far not to see the same severe impact of the virus on people. At the same time, it has become extremely difficult to clearly identify COVID-19 symptoms.
We (management and employees) are doing our best to manage these developments. Employees have been very cooperative in notifying HR of COVID related contacts or suspected symptoms. Management has revised COVID response protocols related to employees several times in the past month as the CDC has updated guidelines.
The attached Word document is our current protocol updated just this week. The CDC defines close contact as being within 6 feet of someone for more than 15 minutes. With COVID, the CDC stipulates that in addition we must consider the type of symptoms (coughing, sneezing, etc.) and whether the suspected person wears a face cover within the prior 48 hours in determining the proper actions to be taken and people to be notified. This is a case by case determination that our COVID response team evaluates.
In addition, we have updated our face cover policy. We now have two policies as attached, one for Office Environments and one for the Manufacturing and Warehouse floor. It is critically important for all of us to conform to these face cover policies to prevent accidently infecting another employee and to minimize the level of our response actions in the event of an infection.
For those of you continuing to be COVID aware and taking precautions outside of TIA, we thank you. This week, I found a COVID risk assessment chart developed by the Texas Medical Association (see attached PDF). It lists various activities on a level of 1 – 10 with 10 being the highest COVID risk activity. Hopefully this is useful for you in your daily life.
As you might be aware, April and May were lackluster months for TIA. On a positive note, we’ve seen a decent uptick in June. However, things are still very uncertain as all of us see in our own life experiences. We still cannot predict or estimate what “normal” might be for our business.
In spite of all this, I continue to be very grateful for what we have and convinced that we will overcome the circumstances we find ourselves in. I have great confidence in all of you to keep TIA on a successful path forward.
Sincerely and respectfully,
Bob