TRCA Hygiene & Physical Distancing Requirements Protocol

May 22, 2020

All TRCA staff are to follow and maintain a preventative approach to potential COVID-19 exposure, including:

Hygiene Requirements:

• Covering your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze with tissues or sneezing or coughing into your sleeve, not your hand.
• Throwing away used tissues after each use.
• Washing your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and warm water
• Avoid group interactions and public gatherings whenever possible and refrain from interaction with elderly people and those with chronic health conditions for 14 days after returning from travelling abroad.
• Change some of your behaviours by avoiding hand-to-hand contact through the shaking of hands. Using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer in absence of soap and water.
• Avoiding touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.
• If you are sick limit contact with others.
• Increasing cleaning and disinfection of high-touch and shared surfaces. This can include cleaning and disinfecting mobile devices.
• Any employee that develops COVID-19 symptoms (outlined below) while at work must notify their supervisor and arrange to leave the facility in a safe and timely manner:
  • Fever, new or worsening cough, new or worsening nose or nasal congestion, difficulty breathing (shortness of breath), or a combination of symptoms
• If you have had known contact with an individual who has been exposed to or has contracted COVID-19, or are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, you are to report it to Public Health, seek medical attention, contact your immediate supervisor, and not attend work.
• There should be no communal food sharing.

Physical Distancing:

• Employees should practice physical distancing in the workplace as much as possible including: • Where possible, remain six (6) feet apart from other individuals
  • Limiting physical contact e.g. no handshaking
  • Where possible, minimize handling of hard copy documents
  • Use of PPE where required
  • Transportation and travel for work should be done only where required and independently (one person in a vehicle)
• Some areas in the workplace where there are close quarters may make it difficult to physical distance, for example elevators, change rooms etc. In these circumstances, employees are encouraged apply these actions to minimize the risk of contagion:
  • Limit the number of individuals in an elevator to one at a time.
  • When passing someone in the hallway, allow the other individual to go first.
  • Hold meetings virtually if the capacity of a meeting space doesn’t all distancing.
  • Wear a face covering where physical distancing is not possible.