Quote Originally Posted by 2in2out View Post
A cold is a communicable disease, requiring that if it was acquired during the course of work, it should be a covered and compensable exposure. Because treatment rarely requires other than self care, an exam by a medical provider and prescribed amount of days off, along with follow-up visit to release the employee back to work.

Being an employer sucks when you learn and understand your responsibilities under “community right to know” law. Employees and customers also have a responsibility, but to a lesser degree. The largest problem with this is the determination of where and who you acquired the communicable disease. With thing like TB, MRSA, and HIV these are fairly easy to chase down in the healthcare setting. They occur in well defined populations and locations. Contract tracing is easy in this regard.
I had a colleague at a previous job who was placed in a hazardous position and contracted hepatitis. He hired a lawyer and was able to get a good settlement out of the company for his lifelong condition.

OSHA gets involved when there are hazardous conditions associated with employment and attempt to minimize risks associated with those exposures. Disease is a hazard of many occupations and the appropriate safeguards are in place for most of these. What we saw with slaughterhouses at the start of the epidemic was insufficient protections for employees. They were spaced too closely together, there was inadequate screening, they had inadequate PPE. They have made a lot of adjustments to their operations as a result, in conjunction with review from OSHA. These facilities all have OSHA reportable due to the exposure of their employees and they are taking it very seriously now.