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Experts say people who piece of work from home are far less probable to get COVID-xix than those who have to commute to their workplace. 10'000 Hours/Getty Images
  • A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises people to piece of work from home if they can during the COVID-xix pandemic.
  • Agency officials say that's considering information technology appears people who go to a workplace are twice as likely to get COVID-19 than those who work from domicile.
  • Experts say there are a number of safety precautions you tin can accept on the task, including mask wearing and hand sanitizing.
  • They as well note that the commute can be as risky as the task itself, then precautions should be taken while riding the train or bus.

As reported COVID-xix cases keep to reach record highs heading into winter, new guidance from the Centers for Affliction Command and Prevention (CDC) recommends that workers should be allowed to work remotely if they tin can.

That recommendation comes subsequently the agency plant that employed adults who tested positive for COVID-nineteen were twice as likely to study going to a workplace with other people than those who tested negative.

These results held truthful for both essential workers in critical infrastructure and those simply working in offices where employers take decided to resume in-person work.

"The only way to prevent infection spread in the workplace is to go on sick people away from well people," said Murray Cohen, PhD, MPH, a retired CDC infectious disease epidemiologist and medical adviser to Wello, a company that makes temperature check devices.

"In addition to allowing off-site telecommuting, employers need to think virtually flexible hours that space out the number of people at work at the same fourth dimension; limit congregating in snack rooms, waiting rooms, or other communal spaces in their facilities; and assuring that regular cleaning includes at to the lowest degree daily decontamination of high-bear upon and horizontal surfaces with a disinfectant listed by the [Ecology Protection Agency] as effective confronting coronavirus," Cohen said.

In addition, "mask wearing should be mandatory whenever whatsoever additional worker is at a workstation, and hand sanitizing stations should be hands accessible to all workers throughout the workday," Cohen told Healthline. "These aforementioned piece of work rules utilize to visitors, customers, commitment, and contract workers."

While the research didn't expect specifically at the dangers involved with commuting to and from piece of work, experts say at that place can be equally many dangers during the commute itself as in that location are within the workplace.

"I suspect that the highest-risk places are those that we don't recollect about," Dr. Sharon Nachman, a leader on infectious and pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Medicine, told Healthline.

Those include touching door handles, drinking coffee near others, and not paying close attention to wearing masks correctly.

"For commuters, we need to think about being careful to not touch our faces," she said.

"Masks will prevent inhalation of particles in the air, but touching of surfaces and and then your face is another style viruses travel. And so beingness careful and using hand sanitizer when you are in your seat should become a routine practice," Nachman said.

The CDC findings also again enhance the question of who gets to stay home and be safer than those who have to become out and comingle with other people amid a flaring pandemic.

Black Americans have been specially hard-striking past COVID-19 and are almost five times as likely to be hospitalized with the disease as non-Hispanic white Americans.

Black Americans are also more likely to accept essential worker roles in food services and public transit that don't offer the possibility of working remotely.

"These findings highlight socioeconomic differences among participants who did and did not report teleworking before affliction onset, with not-white employees and those who earn less money having less opportunity to telework," the CDC study reads. "Sociocultural disparities and unemployment have also been observed in industries where telework options are not feasible."

Some work actually is essential, however, and if workers are going to exist rubber at their workplaces, experts say nosotros may need more unified messaging for employers to follow.

"At that place is a lot of federal guidance available from the CDC and OSHA," Heather Macre, a healthcare attorney at the law firm Fennemore Craig in Phoenix, Arizona, told Healthline.

"In addition, state health and labor departments have a lot of information available. However, this creates a patchwork of regulations that employers need to bank check frequently. Information technology would be helpful to have ane, unified federal clearinghouse with updated data," she said.

Only safety rules only work if employers enact and enforce them.

"Despite multiple complaints, I am the only person in my part who wears a mask," said Sarah, 32, an asset managing director working in commercial real estate.

She told Healthline that some aspects of her task have to be done in person, but but a small portion, and that it could be limited to essential contact.

"If it were up to me, I'd only become to the office once a week and piece of work from dwelling the rest of the fourth dimension," she said.

Sarah said her dominate doesn't believe that masks are constructive protection against COVID-19, despite bear witness to the contrary, and therefore isn't enforcing recommended public safety guidelines.

"I feel like my dominate does the bare minimum," she said. "And I become it, everyone has to do what's right for them. Merely information technology's exhausting to experience like you lot're the but one aware of the pandemic."

If you commute to work or your workplace isn't a especially safe environment, there are nonetheless some actions y'all tin can take to mitigate your take a chance.

First of all, don't go to piece of work if you're feeling ill, Nachman said.

"Stay home. Take a test. Allow the Section of Health to acquit contact tracing if you are infected," she said.

There are a number of condom precautions you can take if yous're ill or fifty-fifty if you're not.

"Did you wear a clean mask? Did you lot bring lunch and, if so, where volition you be eating it? Same for snacks. If you are buying dejeuner, call back nearly if y'all can take information technology delivered to you exterior. If you have to become indoors, then make sure that people inside are wearing masks. Keep yours on every bit well," Nachman said.

Finally, she said, if you've never gotten a flu shot before, this is the year to practise information technology.

"Remember, the last affair we desire is to see someone sick with two unlike viruses at the aforementioned time," she said.