How many workers are testing positive for Covid 19?

To date, there has been no data on incidence of Covid 19 cases in the workplace in Michigan.

The State of Michigan, as part of Executive Order 2020-114 requires that businesses immediately notify the local public health department and any co-workers, contractors, or suppliers who may have come into contact with the person with a confirmed case of COVID-19 within 24 hours. Businesses must also shut down operations when any person is found to show symptoms of Covid 19 in the establishment and has a positive test.

But anecdotal reports are suggesting that compliance with the directive is spotty. No doubt, businesses will be hesitant to shut down operations with little notice or to draw undue attention to themselves. However, after one local business (so far the only one to do so) issued a public statement that one of their employees tested positive for the disease, the public is becoming skeptical of the private sector’s commitment to responding to potential exposures.

Rumors are flying through service workers that businesses are slow to respond or are actively covering up information on cases that have appeared in their workplaces. Of course, these are rumors and anecdotes, but even if the incidents are wholly unsubstantiated, public skepticism on social media is not. The public does not trust businesses, and particularly service businesses to adhere to the guidelines spelled out in the executive order.

Clearly, we are in real trouble. Cases have spiked in the past week, hospitalizations are up, and many states have lost or are about to lose the gains they have made. Hospitals in Texas are overflowing. Even the US military has extended bans on movement or personnel into specific states, most notably, my own while lifting them for other states.

We need businesses to adhere to the guidelines for reporting in the executive order, but we also need to use that data to inform the public on risks for infection when visiting businesses. While businesses are required to report to local health authorities, there is no indication that the data will be made public and very little indication that the data will be disseminated in a manner that will facilitate research on specific risks in different types of businesses.

Supposedly, you can call your local health department and they will tell you if you if you might have been exposed when you went to Place X. That requires a lot of work on the part of the consumer, and how are they going to know to ask about a specific business without having an alarm raised anyway? I can’t see how that can work.

Public health authorities and the private sector MUST work together to implement systems and information sharing that protects the public health. While businesses are right to be concerned about their survival, becoming the center of a superspreader event will be a public relations disaster as we saw in Lansing, MI over the weekend.