A novel coronavirus is a new coronavirus that has not been previously identified. The virus causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is not the same as the coronaviruses that commonly circulate among humans and cause mild illness, like the common cold.

A diagnosis with coronavirus 229E, NL63, OC43, or HKU1 is not the same as a COVID-19 diagnosis. Patients with COVID-19 will be evaluated and cared for differently than patients with common coronavirus diagnosis.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses. Some cause illness in people, and others, such as canine and feline coronaviruses, only infect animals. Rarely, animal coronaviruses that infect animals have emerged to infect people and can spread between people. This is suspected to have occurred for the virus that causes COVID-19. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) are two other examples of coronaviruses that originated from animals and then spread to people. More information about the source and spread of COVID-19 is available on the Situation Summary: Source and Spread of the Virus.

This virus was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The first infections were linked to a live animal market, but the virus is now spreading from person-to-person. It’s important to note that person-to-person spread can happen on a continuum. Some viruses are highly contagious (like measles), while other viruses are less so.

The virus that causes COVID-19 seems to be spreading easily and sustainably in the community (“community spread”) in some affected geographic areas. Community spread means people have been infected with the virus in an area, including some who are not sure how or where they became infected.

Learn what is known about the spread of newly emerged coronaviruses.

The virus that causes COVID-19 is spreading from person-to-person. Someone who is actively sick with COVID-19 can spread the illness to others. That is why CDC recommends that these patients be isolated either in the hospital or at home (depending on how sick they are) until they are better and no longer pose a risk of infecting others.

How long someone is actively sick can vary so the decision on when to release someone from isolation is made on a case-by-case basis in consultation with doctors, infection prevention and control experts, and public health officials and involves considering specifics of each situation including disease severity, illness signs and symptoms, and results of laboratory testing for that patient.

Current CDC guidance for when it is OK to release someone from isolation is made on a case by case basis and includes meeting all of the following requirements:

• The patient is free from fever without the use of fever-reducing medications.
• The patient is no longer showing symptoms, including cough.
• The patient has tested negative on at least two consecutive respiratory specimens collected at least 24 hours apart.

Someone who has been released from isolation is not considered to pose a risk of infection to others.

Quarantine means separating a person or group of people who have been exposed to a contagious disease but have not developed illness (symptoms) from others who have not been exposed, in order to prevent the possible spread of that disease. Quarantine is usually established for the incubation period of the communicable disease, which is the span of time during which people have developed illness after exposure. For COVID-19, the period of quarantine is 14 days from the last date of exposure, because 14 days is the longest incubation period seen for similar coronaviruses. Someone who has been released from COVID-19 quarantine is not considered a risk for spreading the virus to others because they have not developed illness during the incubation period.

Coronaviruses are generally thought to be spread from person-to-person through respiratory droplets. Currently there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food. Before preparing or eating food it is important to always wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds for general food safety. Throughout the day wash your hands after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing, or going to the bathroom.

It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated, or frozen temperatures.

Learn what is known about the spread of COVID-19.

Get the infrastructure right. Do people have the requisite technology or access to it? Who has a laptop? Will those who do [have laptops] be able to dial into their organizations easily?  Will they have the software they need to be able to do work, have conference calls, etc?  What about the employees who don’t have laptops or mobile devices? How do you make sure that they have access to the resources they need to do work? Direct managers have to very quickly ensure that every employee has full access, so no one feels left behind.

If you need assistance, please contact us to help you with this. 

Develop rituals and have a disciplined way of managing the day. Schedule a start and an end time. Have a rhythm. Take a shower, get dressed, even if it’s not what you’d usually wear to work, then get started on the day’s activities. If you’re used to moving physically, make sure you build that into your day. If you’re an extrovert and accustomed to a lot of contact and collaboration with others, make sure that still happens. Ask yourself:  How will I protect yourself from feeling lonely or isolated and stay healthy, productive, and vibrant? Create that for yourself.

Remember, too, that you might actually enjoy working from home. You can play the music you like. You can think flexibly about your time. It can be fun. As for managers, they need to check in on people. Make sure they’re not only set up but also that they have that rhythm and contact. Ask: “What can I do to make sure that this sudden and quick transition is working for you?”

There are more than 10,000 books in the English language in Amazon on how to lead remotely or at a distance. Why is that? Because this is very difficult to do, and managers have to actively work on it. Number one, make sure that team members constantly feel like they know what’s going on. You need to communicate what’s happening at the organization level because when they’re at home, they feel like they’ve been extracted away from the mothership. They wonder what’s happening at the company, with our clients, with our common objective. The communication around that is extremely important. So you’re emailing more, sharing more.

During this period, people will also start to get nervous about revenue goals and other things, so you’ll have to make sure they feel like they’re going to be OK. Another thing is to ensure that no members feel like they have no less access to you than others. At home, people’s imaginations begin to go wild. So you have to be accessible and available to everyone equally. Finally, when you run your group meetings, aim for inclusion and balance the airtime so everyone feels seen and heard.

Productivity does not have to go down at all. It can be maintained, even enhanced, because commutes and office distractions are gone. Of course, you might be at home with your partner or kids and those issues will need to be worked out. Another problem might be your ability to resolve problems quickly when you can’t meet in person, in real time. That might create delays. But other than that, I don’t see productivity going down. There’s robust evidence showing that it shouldn’t change.

People get used to having these unplanned watercooler or cappuccino conversations with colleagues, and they are actually big, important parts of the workday that have a direct impact on performance. How do we create those virtually? For some groups and individuals, it’s will be constant instant messaging. For others, it will be live phone conversations or video conferences. Some people might want to use Microsoft Teams or Slack. A boss can encourage those types of contact points for psychological health. People are not going to be able to figure this out organically. You’ve got to coach them. There’s one more thing:  Exercise. It’s critical for mental well-being.

First, you should have a group conversation about the new state of affairs. Say, “Hey, folks, it’s a different world. We don’t know how long this is going to last. But I want to make sure you all feel you have what you need.” This should be followed by a team launch to jump-start this new way of working. Figure out: How often should we communicate? Should it be video, phone, or Slack/Jive/Yammer. If you’re not using one of those instant messaging systems, should you? What’s the best way for us to work together? You’ve got to help people understand how to do this and give them confidence that it work.

Once that’s sorted out, meet with your group at least once a week. In a remote environment, frequency of contact cannot go down. If you’re used to having meetings, continue to do so. In fact, contact should probably go up for the whole team and its members. Newer employees, those working on critical projects and people who need more contact will require extra one-on-ones. Remember, too, that you can do fun things virtually: happy hour, coffee breaks, lunch together. All these things can continue the connection you had at the office. And there’s ample research showing that virtual teams can be completely equal to co-located ones in terms of trust and collaboration. It just requires discipline.

First, you have to have some explicit ground rules. Say, “Folks, when we have these meetings, we do in a nice way, we turn off of phones, we don’t check emails or multitask.” I highly recommend video conferencing if you have the ability to do that. When people are able to see one another, it really makes a difference. And then you trust people to follow the ground rules.

Number two, because you no longer have watercooler conversations and people might be just learning how to work from home, spend the first six to seven minutes of a meeting checking in on people. Don’t go straight to your agenda items. Instead, go around and ask everyone, “How are you guys doing?” Start with whomever is the newest or lowest status person or the one who usually speaks the least. You should share as well, so that you’re modeling the behavior. After that, you introduce the key things you want to talk about, and again model what you want to see, whether it’s connecting, asking questions, or even just using your preferred technology, like Zoom or Skype for Business.

The last thing I’ll say is there, you have to follow up these virtual meetings with redundant communication to ensure that people have heard you and that they’re OK with the outcome. Say you have a video conference about a topic. You follow it up with an email or a Slack message. You should have multiple touchpoints through various media to continue the trail of conversation.

If you need assistance with setting your business up with these communication tools, contact our team for help!

I’ll say this to every manager out there: you have to trust your employees.  This is an era and a time in which we have to heed Ernest Hemingway’s advice: “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”  You can’t see what people are doing. But equip them in the right ways, give them the tasks, check on them like you’ve always done, and hope they produce in the ways you want them to. You can’t monitor the process, so your review will have to be outcome-based. But there’s no reason to believe that, in this new environment, people won’t do the work that they’ve been assigned. Remote work has been around for a very long time. And today we have all of the technologies we need to not only do work but also collaborate. We have enterprise-wide social media tools that allow us to store and capture data, to have one-to-many conversations, to share best practices, to learn.

Bosses should be prepared for that conversation and to help people think those issues through. The blurring of boundaries between work and home has suddenly come upon us, so managers have got to develop the skills and policies to support their teams. This might involve being more flexible about the hours in which employees work. You don’t have to eat lunch at 12pm. You might walk your dog at 2pm. Things are much more fluid, and managers just have to trust that employees will do their best to get their work done.

We’ve been seeing virtual sales calls and client engagements. You do the exact same things. Here, it’s even more important to use visual media. Take whatever you would be doing face to face and keep doing it. Maybe you can’t wine and dine. But you can do a lot. Be creative.

The organizations have to figure out a way to support those workers, some kind of collective action to help them because otherwise you’re completely isolating people who are critically important to your operation. I would put together a task force, and I would find solutions to keep them connected and ensure that they still feel valued. And include them in the planning.

When you see the signs — like fewer emails or more inhibition in group conversations — talk to them. Increase contact and encourage others to, as well. Understand where they are. And get them what they need. Organizations should also make sure to have employee assistance services at this time. When you’re suddenly taking away people’s regular routines and connection with other people and it’s open ended, some will struggle and need extra help. I’d add that every CEO of every organization needs to be much more visible right now — through video conferencing, or taped recording to give people confidence and calm them down and be healers- or hope-givers-in-chief.

• The Centers for Disease Control has issued guidance for businesses and employees which can be found here.
• The U.S. Department of Labor has developed some guidelines for how companies can prepare their workplace for COVID-19. In addition, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has launched a COVID-19 website with information specifically for workers and employers.  There is also information on issues relating to wages and hours worked under the Fair Labor Standards Act available here.
• The Maryland Department of Labor’s Division of Labor and Industry enforces the Maryland Health Working Families Act, also known as Safe and Sick Leave, which may be useful for employees who need to take off from work due to COVID-19. To learn more about the law, email ssl.assistance@maryland.gov or call 410-767-2357.
• If a business experiences a temporary or permanent layoff, Labor’s Division of Unemployment Insurance’s Bulk Claim Services can open unemployment insurance claims for all affected employees. Businesses should contact a Claims Representative by emailing UI.BulkClaim@maryland.gov or calling (410) 767-3252. For more information, visit the Department of Labor’s COVID-19 FAQ page.
• The Maryland Insurance Administration has also put together an FAQ addressing insurance-related questions about coronavirus.
• Labor’s Division of Workforce Development and Adult Learning enforces the Rapid Response System, which works collaboratively with the State’s businesses and workers to minimize the impact of economic disruptions caused by layoffs and plant or business operations closing.
• Labor’s Office of Small Business Regulatory Assistance is available to help Maryland business owners find timely and effective solutions to issues, so they can go about running their companies. They can be contacted by calling 410-230-6101 or emailing osbra.inquiry@maryland.gov.
• The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued a national emergency declaration to provide hours-of-service regulatory relief to commercial vehicle drivers transporting emergency relief in response to COVID-19.

• President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) will provide low-interest loans to companies affected by the outbreak, and that he will ask Congress to increase funding for the SBA lending program to $50 billion.
• Maryland officials are working with the SBA to ensure that Maryland businesses can apply for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans, and Commerce is working closely with our business community and local partners to identify businesses that may benefit from this assistance.
• General SBA guidance for businesses can be found here.
• The Comptroller of Maryland has extended business tax filing deadlines to June 1 for some businesses with March, April and May due dates. More information is available here, and a dedicated email address has been established for questions at taxpayerrelief@maryland.gov.

• According to the Governor’s Executive Order, all licenses, permits, registrations, and other authorizations issued by the state, its agencies or any political subdivision that would expire during the current state of emergency will be extended until at least the 30th day after the state of emergency is lifted.
• Labor’s Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (O&P) is temporarily extending license expiration dates until May 1, which is subject to being extended as the response to the coronavirus situation evolves. They can be contacted by emailing dlopl-labor@maryland.gov.

• We encourage members of the business community to reach out with their questions by sending a message to Secretary.Commerce@maryland.gov.

  We also recommend that everyone regularly visit the Maryland Department of Health for the latest information on coronavirus and the Office of Governor Larry Hogan for updates on the state’s response to the outbreak.

  The Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) has activated its Virtual Business Operation Center (VBOC) as of March 6 to address inquiries from the private sector. Businesses that are interested in emergency operations engagement can learn more through MEMA’s Private Sector Integration Program.

  The State of Maryland is committed to helping protect the health and well-being of all Marylanders. Thank you for being our partner as we face this challenge together.

If employers haven’t already, now is the time to:

• Review plans to operate with adaptations such as telework and flexible sick leave policies that permit employees to stay home and care for a sick family member.
• Review other contingency or emergency operations plans.
• Communicate policies and plans with employees.
• Cross-train personnel to perform essential functions so that the workplace is able to operate even if key staff are absent.
• Have a plan in place if an employee does get sick at the workplace.
• Consider not requiring a health care provider’s note for employees with an acute respiratory illness.
• Cleaning and disinfection recommendations from CDC for community facilities with suspected/confirmed coronavirus disease 2019.

Most importantly, in the event of an outbreak locally, we will need employers to stress to employees that they not come to work when they are sick. We recognize that is a difficult ask – especially for small businesses – and for employees whose paychecks depend on every hour that they do work. But limiting public interactions of people who are sick will be an important mitigation strategy if community spread does occur in Delaware.

Our Public Health officials know this is a rapidly evolving situation in the U.S. and across the world, and that recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are subject to frequent change.

In addition to encouraging Delawareans to get their flu shot, the Division of Public Health recommends these everyday measures to prevent the spread of all germs, which also would slow the spread of coronavirus disease:

• Cough or sneeze into your elbow, not your hand. If you use a tissue, dispose of it right away.
• Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and warm water, including the backs of your hands and under your nails. Or use an alcoholbased hand sanitizer.
• Do not touch your face, eyes or mouth with unwashed hands.
• Clean surfaces at work, home or school that you use often.
• Stay home when you are sick and avoid being around well people.
• A health care professional might recommend that someone post heart surgery or with cancer or some other disease that compromises their immune system should wear a mask.

The symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath. Symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as long as 14 days after exposure. Reported illnesses have ranged from people with little to no symptoms (like the common cold) to people becoming severely ill and dying.

For employers who have had employees travel for either business or vacation:

• Anyone who has returned from a country with a level 2 or higher travel alert in the past 14 days and has developed symptoms such as coughing, fever, and shortness of breath, should contact their doctor.
• Any returning travelers, again within the last 14 days, from these countries who do not have symptoms are asked to call their doctor to get guidance on self-monitoring for symptoms and what to do if you do develop symptoms.
• Both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, are asked to stay at home for 14 days after returning from travel. That means no work or no school, and to avoid large gatherings.

For more information and updates related to COVID-19, visit the DPH website at de.gov/coronavirus, where materials can be found in English, Simplified Chinese/Mandarin, Spanish and Haitian-Creole.

Delaware Small Businesses Affected by Coronavirus (COVID-19) Can Apply for an SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loan.

SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans are working capital loans to help small businesses, and most private, non-profit organizations of all sizes meet their ordinary and necessary financial obligations that cannot be met as a direct result of the disaster.
• SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans offer up to $2 million in assistance to help overcome the temporary loss of revenue they are experiencing.
• These loans may be used to pay fixed debts, payroll, accounts payable and other bills that can’t be paid because of the disaster’s impact.
• The interest rate is 3.75% for small businesses without credit available elsewhere; businesses with credit available elsewhere are not eligible. The interest rate for non-profits is 2.75%.
• SBA offers loans with long-term repayments in order to keep payments affordable, up to a maximum of 30 years.

Applicants may apply online, receive additional disaster assistance information and download applications at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela.

Applicants may also call SBA’s Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955 or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance.