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Objective

Our objective was to assess the Post'due south response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak regarding the prophylactic of its employees.

In March 2020, the president of the United States alleged the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency; its impact to the nation's health and safety has been unprecedented. Co-ordinate to the Centers for Disease Command and Prevention (CDC), as of July 31, 2020, at that place were four.five million cases and 151,000 deaths in the U.Southward. Many states and communities close down businesses, asked people to stay domicile, and prohibited gatherings to slow the spread of the virus. Even during the shutdowns, the Postal Service continued to deliver mail service and packages to every address in the nation, every day.

To atomic number 82 its pandemic response, the Postal service created the COVID-19 Command Response Team at headquarters to ensure the agency followed directives and guidance from the CDC. The Postal Service implemented changes to slow the spread of the virus, manage and support affected employees, and ensure that recovered employees returned to work safely.

To dull the virus'due south spread, the Post required all employees to wear face coverings where a state or local mandate was in place and social distancing could non be achieved, requested customers to wear confront coverings in all retail facilities, and established daily cleaning of the workroom floor and cleaning of often touched surfaces between tours. In addition, the Post established a COVID-19 Supplies Control Center to monitor daily inventories in the field and identify facilities in need of essential supplies. This helped ensure millions of face coverings, gloves, and cleaning products were available to most 641,000 Postal Service employees working across 31,500 facilities. To place employees with COVID-19 symptoms at work, the Mail also deployed a temperature-taking proof of concept exam at four facilities in May 2020.

For employees who either contracted or were affected past the virus, the Mail service allowed the use of liberal leave. Information technology also established a Close Contact Tracing Programme in April 2020 to outline prophylactic protocols for identifying and quarantining employees who came into shut contact with an infected person at piece of work, as well as tracking employees with a positive COVID-19 test. The Postal Service'due south nursing staff is responsible for conducting contact tracing to decide if whatever employees were in contact with an infected coworker. They also ready return-to-work dates for employees after an exposure to or illness from COVID-19.

The Postal Service's quick actions likely saved lives and certainly increased employee safety. Despite these efforts to contain COVID-nineteen, 33,945 employees took leave to quarantine, 7,421 tested positive for the virus, and lxxx died, as of July 31, 2020. The number of new, positive cases in the Postal Service steadily increased since the first confirmed instance in February 2020 through the end of July 2020. Therefore, vigilance and additional precautions could help further protect employees.

Findings

While nosotros recognize the challenges facing the Postal Service during the pandemic, we identified three areas where the Postal service can better protect its employees: (1) face covering policy, (two) contact tracing program, and (iii) employee health screening.

First, Postal Service employees did not e'er wear face coverings when proper social distancing could not exist accomplished. We visited 10 facilities, including v mail processing and five retail and delivery facilities, and observed employees at four retail and delivery facilities (40 percent) who did not adhere to the local face roofing policy. In addition, during our review of camera footage, nosotros observed 41 of 117 facilities (35 percent) with at least one employee not wearing a face covering where a local mandate required one, and while not social distancing.

These employees were backside the counter or in the dorsum of a retail and commitment facility or on the workroom floor in a processing facility.

The Postal Service face covering policy at all facilities cited local or state mandates and when employees could not maintain social distancing in the workplace. All the same, facility management voiced confusion with the policy and interpreted it to hateful that land and local directives adamant whether employees were required to article of clothing face coverings. Postal Service Headquarters considered the local requirements supplemental to the nationwide policy.

In add-on, managers of offending employees were not always aware they could enforce the face covering policy. An enforcement procedure which includes engaging the union representative and taking advisable action existed; however, it was not well-known or followed because information technology was but communicated verbally to some managers. The confusing face roofing policy and its inconsistent enforcement put employees at a higher run a risk of exposure to COVID-19 and potentially decreased employee availability.

Second, the Close Contact Tracing Program did not include an overarching programme goal with associated metrics and did non ensure adequate staffing. Direction indicated they did non plant goals for the contact tracing program because they did not believe contact tracing was measurable and did believe that its awarding varied case by example. However, program goals and performance metrics are essential to monitor progress and determine resources needed. In addition, the responsibilities of and reliance on the nursing staff grew during the pandemic because local public health departments were unable to complete contact tracing. As of July 31, 2020, there were 116 Mail service nurses nationwide, with thirty vacancies — a 21 percentage vacancy rate. Local direction did non actively post open positions on the Postal Service's career website. Retaining a full complement of nurses, or supplementing them where necessary with contractor back up, is specially of import during the COVID-19 crisis.

Lastly, although the CDC recommended temperature taking for employees in Apr 2020, the Postal service did not deploy temperature taking within its facilities nationwide. Equally of July 31, 2020, there was at least one employee who either tested positive for COVID-nineteen or quarantined due to possible exposure to the virus at over 7,000 Postal service facilities. The Mail conducted a temperature taking proof of concept test in May 2020 at four facilities, and information technology plans to conduct health screening tests at two additional facilities.

The Post indicated that it has not deployed nationwide temperature taking tests because completing the test is resources intensive and there were privacy concerns. The Postal Service's process for conducting the tests was complicated, and it required the buy of different types of thermometers, additional employee time, and coordination with the law department and unions. Additionally, the Postal Service determined that temperature taking alone would not exist enough to identify employees with COVID-19. Without conducting daily in-person or virtual health checks of employees before they enter the facility, employees could come to work while sick, increasing the likelihood of transmission of COVID-19 to other employees and customers.

We did not evaluate contempo operational changes made by the Mail service or the significant increases in delayed mail at delivery units experienced this summer. In response to a congressional request received on August 7, 2020, we have an ongoing projection which will evaluate these operational changes and their affect on mail service.

Recommendations

Nosotros recommended management:

• Clarify and communicate the Postal Service'due south face covering policy for consistent, nationwide application.

• Communicate policy regarding immediate enforcement and corrective activity for non-compliance with the face up covering policy.

• Re-evaluate the Close Contact Tracing Program to include plan goals, functioning metrics, and a hiring initiative to ensure acceptable staffing.

• Evaluate options and implement a nationwide wellness screening initiative which may include employee cocky-certification.

Read full written report

Audit Resolution - Recommendation 2

OIG Response

Audit Resolution - Recommendation 4

OIG Response

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Source: https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/employee-safety-%E2%80%93-postal-service-covid-19-response

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