Businesses operating during the COVID-19 pandemic are supposed to write down how they plan to keep their workers and customers safe. As part of Governor Eric Holcomb’s most recent executive order, Hoosier employers who plan on reopening or continuing operations must develop a plan by next Monday, according to the governor’s general counsel Joe Heerens.
“This plan needs to be posted and made available to the public, but it is also supposed to be provided to the employees of the employer,” Heerens explained during Monday’s COVID-19 press conference. “And it is really meant to provide some confidence to the employees and to others that the business has a plan in place to safely move forward with reopening.”
The plan is supposed to address the implementation of an employee health screening process, enhanced cleaning and disinfecting protocols, making sure employees and customers can wash their hands or take other measures like using hand sanitizer, and meeting the CDC’s social distancing requirements. Social distancing could involve keeping people at least six feet apart, using barriers, or wearing face coverings.
As for who would enforce the new requirements, Heerens said the team that’s already been in place will continue to investigate complaints. But Governor Holcomb also felt that businesses will have to police themselves. “This is nothing that we just pulled out of the air and said, ‘We’re going to start doing business differently for no reason whatsoever,’” Holcomb said. “We are responding to a virus that is highly contagious, that has no vaccine or [therapy], in my mind right now, that’s been – I know we’re trying some and we’re hopeful. But what we have to do is manage our ways through this.”
The governor also expressed regret after he himself was photographed without a mask while picking up food from a Brown County restaurant over the weekend. “It was an unforced error, completely my fault,” Holcomb said.
He felt that the incident should serve as a reminder for everyone to break old bad habits.
