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The office and other workplaces are considered sources of infection by the coronavirus. But evaluations by doctors, companies and researchers lead to a different conclusion: the risk of employees being infected in the workplace is quite low.
Two employees in the new open office of the personnel service provider Adecco in Zurich. Infections in the office are rare, provided protective measures are observed. The recording is from 2018.
“The measures are the latest way to prevent a lockdown, Federal Councilor Alain Berset said at the press conference when he announced new pandemic-related restrictions this week. In the economy, there is growing fear of economic restrictions and plant closures just as drastic and widespread as in the spring.
Contagion in the family and at work
How sensible are such drastic restrictions in the world of work from an epidemiological point of view? Are offices and other workplaces really Corona hotspots? In view of the latest surveys from the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG), the situation for the business world is not very rosy. If you break down all confirmed coronavirus infections from mid-July to early October, nearly 16% of all cases for which an infection site can be determined were infected at work.
The world of work is therefore the second most common source of infection, after the family. However, there are legitimate objections to this. For one thing, it is only known in a third of the cases in which a person was infected. At two-thirds, however, experts feel in the dark. On the other hand, the numbers say nothing about where a possible chain of infection originated and how it spread. It is often unclear whether an employee actually got infected in the office, when in contact with clients, or in his spare time.
In any case, the feedback from companies like Suva, which employs 4,200 people, is interesting. The accident insurer has established internal contact monitoring, which allows internal monitoring of all people who tested positive. Upon request, Suva announces that sick employees have practically never infected other colleagues.
Along with the concepts of internal protection, rules of distance and hygiene, the home office also helps reduce contacts between employees and prevent chains of infection. More than half of Suva’s staff currently work from home. But according to the accident insurer, so far no infection has been attributed to professional activities in the field service or direct contact with the client. Suva does not disclose the number of coronavirus infections. They are comparable with the cantonal incidence rates of the respective locations. The corona pandemic has apparently not led to an increase in illness-related absences – the number of illness cases in Suva has even decreased slightly compared to the previous year, the press spokesperson says.
The situation in Coop and Migros is also revealing. Most of the employees of the two wholesalers are in daily contact with customers and, therefore, are exposed to a certain risk of infection: at Coop, however, the number of diseases is “at the same level as last year” , as reported by the press office. According to their own information, Migros also has no more illnesses than in a normal year, with the exception of “a minor peak in March.” According to the main distributor, thus far “there have been no noticeable crown buds” in the Migros community.
Post office closures due to infections
The situation at Swiss Post is a bit different. Even there, in terms of the number of disease cases, there were no significant changes from the same period last year until the end of September. At the same time, however, it is recognized that post office employees have developed more and more corona diseases in the past two weeks, despite extensive protection and hygiene measures. Last week, the Swiss Post counted a total of 348 sick people, a low number when compared to the workforce of around 49,000 employees in Switzerland. It cannot be determined where they were infected, whether in private or at work. Five post offices had to be closed temporarily for cleaning and disinfection work in the last two weeks.
At the same time, the thesis that the office or workplace is equivalent to a source of infection does not apply. Barbara Bertisch, who runs an infectious practice in Zurich, also came to this conclusion. The doctor has worked in the field of HIV and sexually transmitted infections for more than twenty years and is also actively involved in epidemiological research. In his practice, he cares for (potential) corona-infected individuals on a daily basis. Bertisch and his team have conducted nearly a thousand coronavirus tests in recent months and are in close contact with patients who tested positive during the critical phase. Bertisch collected information on the risk factors of those who tested positive and negative.
Or was it the party after all?
The conclusion of the doctor, who also published in a letter from NZZ to the editor, is that there are very few transfers of office contacts, although the workplace is often mentioned as a place of infection in an initial survey. In his opinion, the reason for the first mention is related to the impression that the experts and the media have spread that infections mainly occur in public transport, during shopping, in the family and at work. Plus, it’s also less complicated if you name the workplace as the source of infection and not the spontaneous weekend party, Bertisch says. In his experience, almost all coronavirus infections can be traced back to noisy communication situations in a confined space; infections occurred, for example, in private gatherings with loud music, while singing in a choir or dancing.
Due to the relatively small number of patients who tested positive in practice, the findings do not claim to be general. A report recently published in the journal “Science” also puts the risk of infection in the workplace into perspective. Based on extensive surveys of corona infection cases in South Korea, American researchers identify three main sources of infection. According to scientists, the number one access point is the private home (including collective accommodation, care facilities, homeless shelters or prisons): 46 to 66% of transmissions occurred in homes.
According to the study authors, the second infection site is events or places where people gather in a confined space, such as choir rehearsals and church or department stores. But health facilities and the meat processing industry with its tight working conditions also fall into this category. Researchers cite domestic travel as the last source of infection. Only a few long-distance connections could spread the virus around the world.
The social partners fight a new blockade
In view of the extraordinary economic damage caused by new closures, it is understandable that the local social partners are vehemently defending themselves against severe restrictions on economic life. For example, they have sent a letter to Federal Councilors Alain Berset and Guy Parmelin, asking that a further blockade be avoided at all costs.
Even unions like Unia, which in the spring continued to advocate vigorously for the closure of construction sites and companies, admit that the concepts of protection in industries and companies have proven their effectiveness, at least where they are implemented. The protection concepts have been effective, even if there are black sheep among the companies, explains the union federation. Most of the companies, in compliance with these requirements, returned to a kind of normal operation in the summer months, although there was no increase in contagion, says Daniel Lampart, chief economist of the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions. In any case, economic life must be saved from large-scale restrictions and business closures.
