Tag: Infectious Diseases

Quarantine/isolation and social distancing are part of the measures to reduce the risk of local transmission of COVID-19. The key difference is quarantine/isolation restricts the movement of a person to a certain zone. Whereas social distancing is a behavioural practice of keeping a safe distance between each other. It does not impose a locational constraint to a person.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has studied the pattern of transmission amongst the locally transmitted cases, and found that many were infected during events and social gatherings, and interactions between colleagues at workplaces.

A few precautionary measures in the workplace should be in place to ensure our invaluable company’s asset (workforce), patrons and their loved ones are protected. Continue reading “The Difference Between Quarantine/Isolation and Social Distancing”

While a business strives to sustain and making a profit for growth, it is also exposed to various types of risk which is out of its control. A few examples are operational, economical, political and biological risk.

In view of more diverse and frequent outbreaks of diseases and infections, business needs to better prepared itself to the pandemic/epidemic threats that might jeopardize its continuity in an extremely short period of time.

A business experiences the impacts of an outbreak through its employees, suppliers and customers. Financial losses can arise because of workplace absence (quarantine order, leave of absence, Stay-Home Notice and medical leave), increased healthcare cost, disruption to business operation, supply chain disruptions, border closure and reduced customer’s footfall.

In order to tackle the biological threat, we can deploy 5 levels of controls, namely elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls and personal protective equipment (PPE). Continue reading “Epidemic Readiness in Workspace and Office”