TABLE 2
COVID-19 Mitigation Strategies Used in Food Industrial Facilities in the United States Before Vaccine Availability
Intervention Type and Mitigation Strategy Definition of Mitigation Strategy Physical Distancing Installed physical barriers
Clear plastic partitions preventing employees from getting too close and preventing particles or droplets exhaled by one person from entering the breathing zone of another
Staggered break times
Groups of employees have different break times
Staggered arrival and departure times (staggered shifts)
Groups of employees have a set number of hours to work during the day, but they have different start and finish times Reduction of a facility’s production capacity accompanied by a reduction in the number of employees Employee benefits include a paid sick leave granted when an employee is unable to work because the employee is quarantined or isolated due to COVID-19, because of a bona fide need to care for an individual subject to quarantine or isolation, or to care for a child (<18 years) whose school or childcare provided is closed or unavailable for reasons related to COVID-19 (definition adapted from U.S Dept. of Labor “Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Employee Paid Leave Rights”)
Downsizing operations Adjusted sick day policy
Spacing workers >6 ft (1.8 m) during production
Keeping a space at least 6 ft between employees
Cohorting employees
Establishing groups of employees based on their risk of infection in the company, where each cohort remains as separated from the other cohorts as possible
Biosafety
Enhanced hand washing
Implementation of a set of instructions for employees about when and how to wash hands that goes above and beyond instructions that were in place pre-COVID-19
Alcohol-based hand rubs
Implementation of a set of instructions for employees about when and how to use hand rubs
Face mask, face shields, and/or goggles
Implementation of a set of instructions about how and when to use face masks, face shields, and goggles. Face masks: often referred to as surgical masks or procedure masks, cover the nose and mouth, secured under the chin, fit snugly against the side of the face, do not have gaps. Face shields: secondary protectors intended to protect the entire face against exposure. Goggles: shield the eyes against hazards.
Increased air ventilation rates Air cleaning and/or filtering
Increase in the rate at which external air (fresh air) flows into the building Destroying or removing hazards such as virus particles from the air
Surveillance Temperature screening and quarantine
Screen for employees with a body temp >99.5 °F (37.5 °C) (or other cutoff value), and keep identified employees away from the workplace to determine whether they develop COVID-19 symptoms or test positive for the disease Test employees for COVID-19 (virus test); isolation: keep an employee who is sick with COVID-19 or tested positive for COVID-19 without symptoms away from the workplace Contact tracing: identify individuals who may have been exposed to a person with COVID-19; quarantine: separate individuals who have had close contact with someone with COVID-19 to determine whether they develop symptoms or test positive for the disease Strategy implemented for employees returning to work following a COVID-19 case based on symptoms or doctor’s recommendation
Test for infection and isolation
Contact tracing and quarantine
Return to work post-recovery policy
Note. Used with permission of the International Association of Food Protection and adapted from “Survey of Implemented Mitigation Strategies and Further Needs of the U.S. Food Industry to Control COVID-19 in the Work Environment in Early 2021,” by S. Llanos-Soto, E. Bulut, S.I. Murphy, C.J. Henry, C. Zoellner, M. Wiedmann, D. Wetherington, A. Adalja, S.D. Alcaine, and R. Ivanek, 2023, Food Protection Trends, 43 (1), 40–60 (https://doi.org/10.4315/FPT-22-012). Permission conveyed through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
and delivery and issued stay-at-home orders, bans on large gatherings, and other business closures. These actions were met with resis- tance and protests (Hartman, 2020b). Masking and social distancing were imposed. In May 2020, the Ohio Department of Health issued
a reopening guide for businesses and required COVID-19 control inspections for restaurants. The guide is no longer available, but an article addressing it is (Hartman, 2020b). Table 1 was used in Delaware County, Ohio, for these inspections after a cautious reopening (Dela-
ware General Health District, 2020). Table 2 shows some COVID-19 mitigation strategies in use in U.S. food industrial facilities before vaccine availability (Llanos-Soto et al., 2023). A case-control study by Fisher et al. (2020) shows the potential for these interventions.
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September 2025 • Journal of Environmental Health
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