New law preventing COVID-19: the first effort to prevent occupational transmission of disease of the 21st century in the USA

Abstract

No one has been untouched by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, which underscores the principle that there is an inextricable link between health, work and the global economy of civil society. The goal of this article is to describe law in the USA that was written during the 2020 pandemic to mobilize occupational health tools that could stem the tide of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 transformed previously stoic economic sectors such as airlines, hotels, food service and major stores into marginal employers. Essential workers in food, retail delivery and health care workers confronted health risks from occupational, transmission of communicable disease. Among workers with school children impacted by COVID-19 Emergency Executive orders to stay in place, e-learning and remote work, e-hospital data collection and health status monitoring, returning to school as teachers or nonessential workers also generated fear of workplace transmission of disease that might infect their family. Using legislative policy analysis methods, this article describes the traditional principles of state labor relations that were rewritten using the legislative pen, now instead requiring risk assessment for all employees and employers to thereby prevent occupational transmission of disease. As discussed here, Virginia, the USA state, responded with a COVID-19 prevention law deploying modern industrial hygiene tools with broader jurisdiction compared to state labor law precedents. As a result, swift administrative action, justified for pandemic response, underscores that marginal employers and their workers need strong occupational health and safety laws, because health is inextricably linked to creating thriving commerce.