Safety Plan

It's January 6, 2022, and I am trying to pinpoint what libraries are obligated to do for employees with regard to COVID safety measures.  Are employers still required to provide safety implements such as masks to their employees and encourage social distancing? What about providing testing kits at no cost to employees?

Here we are in January, 2022, and frustratingly, there is no ONE right answer to this question.[1]  Between OSHA, CDC, WHO, and NYSDOH, together with state-wide and local Executive Orders and states of emergency, the answer to this question is a big, tangled web.

Now that Open Meetings Law modifications have been lifted, are we still required to maintain physical distancing for board meetings? We have a fifteen member board which makes it difficult to spread our trustees out. I understand that we can ask trustees whether they have been vaccinated: If all are vaccinated, do we have to maintain physical distancing?

This question comes at a very challenging time.[1]

The question is difficult because right now, the World Health Organization is looking at the "Delta Variant" of COVID-19 and telling the world to consider continuing to use masks and social distancing while inside.[2]

We are preparing to go to the "masks recommended" phase.  Staff would still be required to wear masks in public portions of the building, but not in their non-shared offices.  However, for those in shared offices, how do we handle the vaccinated/not vaccinated issue?  Do we go with the honor system and tell those in shared offices that if they are vaccinated, they may go maskless?

[DISCLAIMER: This answer presumes there is no collective bargaining agreement or landlord/municipal host terms that impact the library's flexibility while revising their Safety Plan.]

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, here are my "short answers" to these excellent questions:

Our postman refuses to wear a mask in the building even though it is policy and a NYS mandate. When asked to, he refuses and because of that, now delivers the mail by yelling "mail" into our building bookdrop and drops the mail inside. If no one hears him, we miss our opportunity to give him outgoing mail, which he told us to just drop in a mailbox down the street.

I am expediting the answer to this question in light of the new guidance issued by the CDC on 5/13 (stating that people two weeks past their final vaccination can relax on wearing masks)[1], because I foresee more situations like this are going to arise.

Are public or private libraries obligated to give paid time off for eligible employees to get the vaccine during work time? A staffer is planning to go upstate for it on a work day and the question came up if they have to use sick time or just "get the day" to take care of this. Thank you!

Non-governmental employers

Recent changes to the Labor Law make the "private" part of this question easy to answer: since all employers must now offer all employees sick leave (unpaid if the employer has under four employees, paid if five or more), an employee may use that sick leave for the purpose of obtaining medical care, including to get vaccinated.

We are a private association library. There is a "difficult" patron who sits on a bench (almost everyday doing nothing but trying to talk to anyone nearby) which is immediately next to our front doors on library property. We are doing curbside pick-up so the staff places the library items immediately outside the front doors on a table. The patrons come to the table to pick them up.

***THIS ANSWER IS NOT FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES***[1]

Here is what else you can do:

Any private association library currently[2] operating in the State of New York is required[3] to have a pandemic Safety Plan.

We got lucky: an employee, who was asymptomatic at work but tripped one of the screening factors requiring him to stay home, was tested and found NEGATIVE for COVID-19.

Our employee is coming back to work, but I have been wondering...what if the test came back POSITIVE?  If we have to quarantine all our employees, we'd be shut down completely!

First: that is good news about your employee.

Second: a gold star to your library for having a screening system that works, and for following the requirement to restrict an employee who trips a screening factor from on-site work while waiting for test results.

Third: Let's talk about your alternate scenario (the one where you don't get such good news).

In regards to COVID-19 when libraries do reopen, (and allow people in) is it advisable to ask customers to leave the public building if they are exhibiting any visible COVID symptoms? If so, are there benchmarks for how extreme symptoms should be or how policies should be worded?

As the member writes, it is very difficult to determine if some physical factors—coughing, a flush, seeming malaise—are in fact symptoms of COVID-19.  Confronting a patron with suspected symptoms can also lead to concerns impacting community relations, privacy, and the ADA.

Our library has taken the next step in re-opening and is welcoming the public back into our building.  We have a Safety Plan, and we have posted signage in key areas to help the public follow our safety practices, including staying at least six feet apart whenever possible, and every visitor using hand sanitizer upon entry and (if over the age of two) wearing face coverings at all times.

It is not wrong to require patrons to wear masks.  As of this writing (July 7, 2020), qualified experts agree that masks remain one of the most effective ways to stop the transmission of COVID-19.[1]  In an environment storing circulating materials[2] and shar