What COVID-19 Vaccines Mean for the Workplace in 2021 [Video]

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 8. Text, The noise around us. An image displayed with COVID-19 virus and various workplace factors surrounding it.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: There has been so many changes over the course of this this pandemic and more to come.

So, if we can look historically at this, we see that in the early stages of a COVID, and we saw businesses really struggled to sort through all the information that was out there and how to manage the pandemic.

That, as we talk to our customers, we found that it was it was really important to cut through all the noise and get back to core ideas of risk management, the same ones, we would apply to other risks in the workplace.

And that's what I came up with our framework for 2020 which we laid out in our PATH content.

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 9. Text, PATH- Cuts through the noise. An image/graph displayed with the PATH content for COVID-19.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: And PATH is our way to break down all the steps, all the information, and get down to a core set of ideas or the manager way through it.
And this involves planning, taking tangible actions, teaching and training employees, and then maintaining health by managing compliance to the new hygiene standards.

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 10. Text, Applying the hierarchy of control to COVID-19. An image displayed with hierarchy control for COVID-19 and how it leads to more effective/sustainable or more participation/supervision needed.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: Every workplace risk, there is something called the hierarchy of controls. I’m going to imagine, many of the people in the audience have seen this before, this is a way that we think about risk and imagine risk.

And really anything that we look at in the workplace can fit into this hierarchy and so be able to put COVID and the pandemic risk into this structure, I think, really helped us and helped many the customers work with find their way through.

So, for example, you look, you see that anything that eliminates risk is in the long term, sustainable and doesn't require significant monitoring.

And a good example that would be, what is likely the case for many people on this call, but we are working from our homes, we have created elimination by reducing the risk of all of us all sitting together and distributing vaccine.

There is a risk that my cats will wake up any moment and jump into my screen but but I’m willing to take that risk, I think that's okay.

As we walked down through the hierarchy get to things like PPE. Now PPE doesn't eliminate the risk, it reduces the risk of transmission but requires much more participation, much more buy in from your employees and much more supervision.

And just like every other risk, we look at safety and risk management professionals have to balance the cost of visibility, with each of these, across the hierarchy of controls.

And we've also seen companies just evolve very quickly from rapidly putting together pandemic controls to eventually developing more long-term protective measures and then training these protocols to employees.

(DESCRIPTION)
Rich Ives overlay speaking slide 11. A graph is displayed showing the volume of COVID claims related to U.S. Infection Rate. Another table is below showing the U.S. and Travelers WC Claims per symptom category.

(SPEECH)
RICH IVES: Our data shows that the volume of our COVID claims and that would be in the chart, in the blue bars, on a weekly basis, so reported claims every single week throughout the pandemic so far stacked up against the general infection rate, and that is portrayed in the black trend line there that you can see.

And what we find and you can see from that is that the volume of COVID claims and we've seen it generally falls in line with the general infection rate with roughly at least from our experience a two to three-week lag.

Now we find that investigations are very important in these cases to determine compensability.

Many of the reported COVID claims are actually non-compensable due to the fact that the injury of the illness did not arise out of the course and scope of the individual’s employment.

Claims, though, for specific high-risk professions where exposure is unavoidable are often compensable in.

For example, we find that the majority of our compensable COVID claims are really coming from the industry of health care, as you would probably expect.

Now the other thing that we can learn is considering the severity of symptoms, and that's portrayed in the bottom half of this slide in front of you.

Now, think of this as reported severity of symptoms of our COVID claims compared to that of the general U.S. population.

And our COVID symptom mix is really less severe than that of the general population, in part because of the demographics, we believe, of the workforce being different for our customers, meaning that, for example, the workforce in general is younger than that of the general adult population, so you know we see more mild to moderate COVID claims compared to the more severe.

And you can see that represented there. 94% of our reporting COVID claims to date are mild and moderate compared to 85% in the general U.S. population is reported most recently.

We also see a 4% hospitalization rate compared to 12% in the general population, and that would be, you know, a little different than what you see more broadly. We also see, as you can see on that chart, a 2% ICU rate, and that ICU rate being you know kind of similar to the general population, but the mortality in those ICU patients being a little less, and then the mortality rate is roughly, you know, almost half that of the general population.

(DESCRIPTION)
Questions and answer section. Louisa Desson, Rich Ives, Chris Hayes, and Dr. Iglesias videos are displayed as they converse.

(SPEECH)
DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: I think there are several reasons why we need to continue some of these measures, and Rich has touched upon some of them, so let me try to list them. I think the first one is that the approved vaccines don't grant immunity right away.

It can take days after the last dose to achieve the type of immunity that we've seen in the trials that that led to their authorization. So that's the first one.

But secondly, even a 95% vaccine effectiveness, which is incredible, still has a small chance of not working in a particular individual. Third, we don't fully know at this point if the approved vaccines will protect an individual, as Rich said, against the transmissibility.

So I may be, I may not get COVID as an illness or a severe illness, but I may still have the virus and be able to transmit it to someone else so that's significant.

And then I think finally, we don't know yet how the approved vaccines are going to protect an individual against some of the variance that exists today or that will exist in the future.

So, because of these things, I think that masks, although they substantially reduce respiratory droplets and even aerosols, reduce our exposure to the virus.

And wearing a mask, especially wearing it properly, and I need to underscore that, as recommended by the CDC, protects not just others but it protects also the individual who's been vaccinated.

And I think we should think of vaccination or really prevention strategies as being complimentary and cumulative as opposed to isolated.

(DESCRIPTION)
Questions and answer section. Louisa Desson, Rich Ives, Chris Hayes, and Dr. Iglesias videos are displayed as they converse.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: I think it's safe to assume that whatever process you have for hiring and onboarding in 2019 is not working the same in 2021.

And virtually every job has changed in some way in the past 12 months and I’ll go back to the example earlier about a store or restaurant that's gone from having customers come in to moving more towards delivery or curbside pickup.

Those jobs have changed. Has your job description changed, not only your safety protocols, but things like you were transitional duty job bank? Has that changed to keep up with what's happened in your operation?

And then are you hiring differently because the expectations are now different for those roles.

So definitely think keeping that sharp eye. Take a critical look at your operations and what's really changed and how do you need to adapt to it, is absolutely worth doing through every permutation of this.

So definitely think keeping that sharp eye. Take a critical look at your operations and what's really changed and how do you need to adapt to it, is absolutely worth doing through every permutation of this.

You know I'm going to go back to what Rich said what Dr. Iglesias said, that one of the biggest challenges we see is building an engaged team, in an environment where people are on boarded remotely or when social distancing keeps you from really being hands on during orientation.

And I think about any environment where we're in a factory warehouse, we have people doing physical labor, manual labor, where there's a risk of injury in the past we might have had really direct observations in those early days.

And giving direct feedback and do modeling of what the right actions are hard to do in today's environment for a variety of reasons.

(DESCRIPTION)
Text, What COVID-19 Vaccines Mean for the Workplace in 2021. Logo, Travelers. Logo, CSS. Disclaimer reads: “At present, there are two vaccines that have received FDA Emergency Use Authorization and may receive formal FDA Approval in the future. All references in this webinar that refer to approved vaccines refer to these two vaccines that have received the EAU.” Justin Smulison speaking over slides.

(SPEECH)
JUSTIN SMULISON: opening the door.

Greetings and welcome to today's RIMS webinar sponsored by Constitution States Services and Travelers titled “What COVID- 19 Vaccines Mean for the Workplace in 2021.”

This session will be moderated by Louisa Desson, the director and senior editor in Enterprise Integrated Marketing at Travelers.

My name is Justin Smulison - business content manager, RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society. Some brief notes, before we begin.

Following the session, the recording will be available on risk knowledge and all said within one business week and all downloads and related contact information will be accessible to the sponsor of the webinar.

And on to today's session.

As promising new COVID 19 vaccines increasingly reach the general public over the next six months, the American workplaces entering a new stage and what has been a series of unknowns.

In this 60-minute webinar, Louisa Desson will be joined by esteemed panelists to explore the impact of vaccines on middle and long-term strategies for returning to the workplace and how to support employees during this next phase of the pandemic.

RIMS is thrilled to welcome such a huge and global audience. Louisa Desson of Travelers will begin.

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Text, What COVID-19 Vaccines Mean for the Workplace in 2021. Logo, Travelers. Logo, CSS. Louisa Jessen video included and speaking over slides.

(SPEECH)
LOUISA DESSON: Great, thank you and thank you all for joining us today on this important topic. As Justin mentioned, I’m Louisa Desson, director and senior editor at Travelers, where I write articles and create videos designed to help our customers protect their employees and their businesses. And there's certainly never been as far reaching a story as COVID-19 throughout 2020 and into 2021 and is affected virtually every aspect of our daily lives, both at home and at work.

Now, with the COVID-19 vaccines increasingly reaching the general public and the American workplace is entering a new stage and what has been a series of unknowns. This webinar is designed to help clarify the medical facts around COVID-19 as we know them today, talk about the lessons companies have learned related to the effects on employees and worker safety and highlight some important considerations for the coming months.

We have a great panel for today's discussion, and I’ll let them introduce themselves, starting with Chris Hayes.

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Displaying the panel speakers’ image and role at Travelers/CSS on slide 2. Various panel members speaking over slides introducing themselves.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: Hi, I’m Chris Hayes and the second Vice President of Risk Control at Travelers.

LOUISA DESSON: Thank you, Dr. Marcos Iglesias.

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Hi, this is Marcos Iglesias, chief medical director of workers compensation product.

LOUISA DESSON: Thank you and Rich.

RICH IVES: Hello, this is Rich Ives, so I have responsibility for workers compensation claim for the Travelers companies, and I have a claim practice role overall for a couple of parts of our business, one of which is the lead claim role for Constitution State Services are TPA.

LOUISA DESSON: Very good, thank you. Also, as you may be aware, we've received an overwhelming response to this webinar and have a very large number of attendees.

In addition, we've received several questions from brokers and others in recent weeks. So rather than open up the floor to a live Q&A, at the end we'll pull popular questions from these submissions and ask our panelists to respond. With that, let's get started.

Dr. Iglesias, what is the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what have we learned so far?

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Dr. Iglesias overlay speaking slide 3. Graph displayed shows U.S. daily infection estimates as described below.

(SPEECH)
DR. MARCOS IGLESIAS: Sure, Louisa thanks for asking. With over 27 million infections and 471,000 deaths in this country, COVID-19 has certainly changed our lives on a personal, on community, societal, and even international levels. Researchers are now projecting that by June 1, there will be 631,000 deaths in the United States.

And this virus, which remember was unknown to us just 15 months ago, will continue to have wide ranging implications for the way that we live and the way that we work. In a short span of time, we've learned an awful lot about SARS COV 2 and COVID-19, and there's still a lot that we're learning and that we’ll continue to learn over the next few months.

We've learned about prevention.

We've gotten a lot better at treating severe disease, especially in the ICU where we've seen reduced mortality in individuals receiving critical care. We now have two effective and safe vaccines approved for use in the United States to help stem the tide.

And the vaccines have given us hope, but it's important to underscore that there, but one of the tools that we have, and we can't let our guard down.

Using masks, social distancing, and less travel have put us on a downward trend on this third wave of COVID-19. So, we have reason to be optimistic, while remaining soberly cautious around a virus that has wreaked so much havoc in its short life and is now presenting us with significant variants.

Dr. Hans Luca, European director for the World Health Organization, calls our current state the pandemic paradox; it's remarkable hope in the midst of greater uncertainty and even risk.

LOUISA DESSON: Thank you, Dr. Iglesias so certainly some glimmers of hope there. One commonly asked question we're hearing is when can we stop wearing our masks? Is it time yet?

(DESCRIPTION)
Dr. Iglesias overlay speaking slide 4. Image showed is a woman wearing a mask with a text, “Masks Save Lives”. CDC recommendation displayed.

(SPEECH)
DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Well, Louisa the short answer is not yet. The CDC still strongly advises universal use of mask whenever we're outside or not in the home.

And just yesterday, they have beefed up those recommendations and talked really about proper fit of masks so something that we should all pay attention to.

The Institute of Health metrics and evaluation has projected that increasing our mask use from the current 77% to 95% would decrease the death count by over 44,000 lives by June 1. And mask uses today is more important than ever as transmissible strains of the virus spread throughout the country.

LOUISA DESSON: Great, thank you. Another common question, could a person who's had COVID-19 be reinfected a second time?

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Dr. Iglesias overlay speaking slide 5. Image showed is a man wearing a mask. Text, focused on getting COVID-19 more than once with supporting arguments.

(SPEECH)
DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Yeah, at this time, it does not appear that reinfection is very likely. Data shows that the risk of reinfection is about one 10th of 1% currently.

And that's a result of a number of things. One is natural infection provides strong immunity for at least seven months in 90% of cases that have had COVID-19.

Vaccine immunity will become more prevalent, and it seems to be achieved. The 94% - 95% of individuals who receive the two doses of the approved vaccines and will likely last several months.

If experience from other viruses and how those are transmitted is any indication, however, reinfection will likely increase in the coming months, but at this time, I emphasize what I said earlier, they are rare.

LOUISA DESSON: Great, well that's certainly promising. Wat can you tell us about the current state of vaccination?

(DESCRIPTION)
Dr. Iglesias overlay speaking slide 6. Text, focused on vaccination update as of February 10, 2021 with number of doses administered. Graph is displayed illustrating the number of doses administered per 100,000 in the U.S.

(SPEECH)
DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Well, as of yesterday, 45 million doses of the vaccine have been given in the United States, and there are over 10 million individuals who have received the full schedule of the two doses.

And one of the things that we miss, I think, is what I want to underscore next. And that is that vaccinating 14% of the population in a very short period of time is really quite extraordinary. I think that over the next few years, we're going to look back at this time and realize what remarkable things we have done, we've been able to accomplish in the first year and a half of this, you know of this significant pandemic.

LOUISA DESSON: It really is an extraordinary time to be to be living in.

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: It is.

LOUISA DESSON: What can you tell us about the new vaccines that are on the horizon?

(DESCRIPTION)
Dr. Iglesias overlay speaking slide 7. Slide focused on the two FDA-Approved vaccines. A table is displayed showing the various factors/information per vaccine that are on the horizon.

(SPEECH)
DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Well, in the United States, as probably all of you know, we have two vaccines that have been approved by the FDA. They're safe, they're effective; Johnson and Johnson just last week submitted to the FDA an application for the FDA to consider an emergency use authorization of their Janssen vaccine. Other vaccines are in the pipeline, and you can see some of them on your screen.

One of the things about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine or Janssen vaccine that presents a dual advantage is this. One is it only requires normal refrigeration and that's a huge advantage for transportation for storage so logistically it is, it should help.

The other thing is that it is a one dose schedule; you don't need to come back for a second vaccination. It's just one dose.

The Oxford or Astra Zeneca vaccine has not yet been approved or been available in this country, but it has rolled out globally.

Some advantages of that vaccine are that it is inexpensive, it does not need special handling much like the Johnson and Johnson vaccine and significantly may reduce not only disease, but also transmission.

Over the next few months, it's been reported that we should have, in this country, 400 million doses of the vaccines by July, and perhaps even an additional 100 million if the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is approved in the next few days.

So, I think that the next few months are just going to see an acceleration of not only vaccines that are available, but a vaccination, and this should reduce the impact of future waves of the infection.

LOUISA DESSON: Great. Thank you. What additional facts should people take away about the vaccine?

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Well, I mentioned it earlier, the vaccines that have been approved in the United States are safe and they're effective.

And in terms of their safety, I want to highlight that, in the first six weeks of the rollout in the United States, there were 11,000 adverse events, and that's a significant number but it's a small number. And most of the events that have been reported to the vaccine adverse event reporting system, also VAERS, have been things like fatigue, headache, dizziness, fever, chills.

So uncomfortable symptoms, nevertheless, not generally dangerous so anaphylaxis or severe allergic reactions and other serious reactions have actually been very rare in these first couple of months.

LOUISA DESSON: That's great. So, there are number of misconceptions out there about the vaccines, what can you tell us about those?

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Yeah thanks for asking about that Louisa, because I think it's important that all of us understand some of the things about the vaccine, and it's important therefore to point out some of the myths that are prevalent.

For example, the centers for Disease Control reassures the public that one, the vaccine does not cause COVID, and that's very important.

Secondly, the vaccine does not result in a positive test for COVID. It also does not cause infertility, it does not enter your DNA or in any way alter your DNA, so these are important things to remember.

On the flip side, some of the other myths that need dispelling are and the CDC points this out very well, we don't know whether people who receive the vaccine can no longer transmit the virus. And that's why it's important to continue, some of these other measures that we have at our disposal to try to contain the virus as much as we can.

LOUISA DESSON: So, continued social distancing and masking. You know, Chris from a risk control perspective, how has workplace safety evolved during this time?

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 8. Text, The noise around us. An image displayed with COVID-19 virus and various workplace factors surrounding it.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: That’s a big question, considering that Dr. Iglesias said we're 18 months into this and I believe he said, the first 18 months, so there has been so many changes over the course of this this pandemic and more to come.

So, if we can look historically at this, we see that in the early stages with COVID, we saw businesses really struggled to sort through all the information that was out there and how to manage the pandemic.

That, as we talk to our customers, we found that it was it was really important to cut through all the noise and get back to core ideas of risk management, the same ones we would apply to other risks in the workplace.

And that's when I came up with our framework for 2020 which we laid out in our PATH content.

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 9. Text, PATH- Cuts through the noise. An image/graph displayed with the PATH content for COVID-19.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: And PATH is our way to break down all the steps, all the information, and get down to a core set of ideas on the way to manage your way through it.

And this involves, planning taking tangible actions, teaching and training employees, and then maintaining health by managing compliance to the new hygiene standards.

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 10. Text, Applying the hierarchy of control to COVID-19. An image displayed with hierarchy control for COVID-19 and how it leads to more effective/sustainable or more participation/supervision needed.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: Now with every workplace risk, there is something called the hierarchy of controls. I’m going to imagine, many of the people in the audience have seen this before, this is a way that we think about risk and imagine risk.

And really anything that we look at in the workplace can fit into this hierarchy and so being able to put COVID and the pandemic risk into this structure, I think, really helped us and helped many the customers work with find their way through. So, for example, you look, you see that anything that eliminates risk is in the long term, sustainable and doesn't require significant monitoring.

And a good example of that would be, what is likely the case for many people on this call, that we are working from our homes. We have created elimination by reducing the risk of all of us all sitting together and distributing vaccine.

There is a risk that my cats will wake up any moment and jump into my screen, but but I’m willing to take that risk, I think that's okay.

As we walked down through the hierarchy get to things like PPE. Now PPE doesn't eliminate the risk, it reduces the risk of transmission but requires much more participation, much more buy in from your employees and much more supervision.

And just like every other risk, we look at safety and risk management professionals have to balance the cost of visibility, with each of these, across the hierarchy of controls.

And we've also seen companies just evolve very quickly from rapidly putting together pandemic controls to eventually developing more long-term protective measures and then training these protocols to employees.

LOUISA DESSON: Certainly, seeing the value of that you know you can work one day a week, perhaps, from your kitchen counter but you see the effects of that and the need for more structure as the weeks and months run.

CHRIS HAYES: And I think we'll come back to that a little bit later.

LOUISA DESSON: That's great. So Rich, as companies have hunkered down for the long haul, I’m sure we're also learning about the impacts on workers compensation.

(DESCRIPTION)
Rich Ives overlay speaking slide 11. A graph is displayed showing the volume of COVID claims related to U.S. Infection Rate. Another table is below showing the U.S. and Travelers WC Claims per symptom category.

(SPEECH)
RICH IVES: That's right Louisa, and what we thought would be helpful, is if we took our claim data and used it and that would be reported COVID claims through our overall Travelers companies at this point in time today. If we use that, we could almost use it as a proxy, if you will, for the impact in the workplace, compared to that of the general population.

And you can see that portrayed on the slide in front of you. And our data shows that the volume of our COVID claims and that would be in the chart, in the blue bars, on a weekly basis, so reported claims every single week throughout the pandemic so far, stacked up against the general infection rate, and that is portrayed in the black trend line there that you can see.

And what we find and you can see from that is that the volume of COVID claims that we've seen it generally falls in line with the general infection rate with roughly at least from our experience a two to three-week lag.

And you can see, the first wave, then in the second wave, and then certainly the third wave that we are in currently right now. And, as you can see on that slide, our highest wave, our highest volume of COVID claims has come in the last three months.

Starting in November and then peaking in December. December being double the amount of volume from any other month prior than the pandemic and then decreasing some in January as we deescalate on this other side, which is really good to see in this third wave.

Now we find that investigations are very important in these cases to determine compensability.

Many of the reported COVID claims are actually non-compensable due to the fact that the injury or the illness did not arise out of the course and scope of the individual’s employment.

Claims, though, for specific high-risk professions where exposure is unavoidable are often compensable.

For example, we find that the majority of our compensable COVID claims are really coming from the industry of health care, as you would probably expect.

Now the other thing that we can learn is considering the severity of symptoms, and that's portrayed in the bottom half of this slide in front of you.

Now, think of this as reported severity of symptoms of our COVID claims compared to that of the general U.S. population.

And our COVID symptom mix is really less severe than that of the general population, in part because of the demographics, we believe, of the workforce being different for our customers, meaning that, for example, the workforce in general is younger than that of the general adult population. So, you know we see more mild to moderate COVID claims compared to the more severe.

And you can see that represented there. 94% of our reported COVID claims to date are mild and moderate compared to 85% in the general U.S. population as reported most recently.

We also see a 4% hospitalization rate compared to 12% in the general population, and that would be, you know, a little different than what you see more broadly. We also see, as you can see on that chart, a 2% ICU rate, and that ICU rate being you know kind of similar to the general population, but the mortality in those ICU patients being a little less, and then the mortality rate is roughly, you know, almost half that of the general population.

Now the long-term medical complications due to severe COVID cases from a claim perspective at least is unclear at this time.

We are, as we spoke about already, still relatively new in this, you know, this type of a pandemic. But that's something that we should know more about with experience and as the science becomes more available.

Now, though, the other thing that we wanted to leave you with, though, when you asked that question about the impact of the workplace, we are also seeing pandemic impacts to the workforce due to personal pressures, and you can imagine these even from your own personal experience, right.

And those would be personal pressures, maybe anxiety or stress, maybe the loss of a loved one or somebody you are close to.

And so, really, we need to ask the question, what can employers do to help folks through this pandemic to get us to the other side?

And we know that now, more than ever, managers and supervisors on the frontline can really make a significant difference, by investing time to connect and engage with their employees to make sure that they feel cared for, that they received the necessary support and resources, especially as the effects of the pandemic lingers on and just simply as we adjust back to the workforce, where flexibility will need to be exercised.

LOUISA DESSON: Thank you, Rich. Yeah, we know that is so important that that psycho-social and emotional health, both for employees who may be injured and returning to the workplace, but also just for maintaining engagement with employees, whether they're remote or, or returning to the office.

So, thank you for that. So, Chris, now that we're in 2021 and how have things changed in the workplace?

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 12. Two images are represented, a contactless delivery sign and car for curbside pickup. Text, In the last 12 months, the risks in almost any business environment have changed.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: Well from an employee perspective or safety perspective, almost everything has changed. It's clear just to throw that out there.

Between social distancing and hygiene practices, there's just added complexities to every job that we do, and a great example of that is, at least in the screen here.

Many businesses that we've visited in the past have switched over their customer engagement model completely.

And they're working more in delivery or curbside pickup which just changes the risk. I think of a restaurant that very much worried about its employees and customers coming in and out. Now you have curbside delivery.

Curbside delivery in a facility, in say New England in the wintertime, where it's dark early, where there might be snow and ice, and there's a lot of traffic through your parking lot sets up a whole new set of risks that need to be managed and managed differently.

The thing I think about again, I look at the audience we have today and likely many of us are working from home. I certainly am.

And hopefully as Louisa said, we're not working from the kitchen table or you're not sitting on your couch.

And that may have work well for the occasional day working from home, but now we're getting close to a year that people are working from home, and it's something we will start to see the negative effects on the body from these informal workspaces.

But I think Rich really hit one of the key points is that the need to engage with our workforce is as important, if not more important now than ever, the challenges around the emotional health of the employee and staying connected to those employees to understanding their challenges just continues to grow.

Think about the employee they may have seen on a regular basis, you know the office, you know, to understand that employees, having a challenge that might lead to an injury.

That was easier to do in this setting over Zoom over some sort of call. It's very different. So, the more you can keep those engagements up, the better for the long-term health of our employees.

LOUISA DESSON: And the sooner, you can be aware of potential problems, the sooner, you can prevent them from getting worse.

CHRIS HAYES: Absolutely, the hope would be that an engaged employee is more willing to be honest and open about maybe challenges they are having that might affect their physical health and is more willing to speak at that quickly and be able to address that without fear from their manager.

LOUISA DESSON: Very good, thank you. So, hearing that we're not out of the woods yet, what are some things that we can be doing to keep our employees safe?

(DESCRIPTION)
Chris Hayes overlay speaking slide 13. An image of a women in the workplace is displayed wearing a mask.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: Well as the vaccine rolls out as Dr. Iglesias said, we really need to be cautious about getting ahead of ourselves in returning to work practices we had before COVID.

So, businesses should expect to maintain the same social distancing and mitigation strategies for some time as measures come together to reduce or eliminate the pandemic and, yes, this does include wearing masks.

So, at this point, we've gone through nearly a full year business cycle with these new probate, sorry COVID protocols.

So that's a good time to take a look at your safety program and see how it has performed, if everything has changed the last 12 months.

How's your safety program perform? How's your risk management program performed? Are you seeing any trends in employee injuries that you can start looking at with that lens and start making adjustments.

It's very possible that organizations made very quick changes back in March or April of last year.

Just for there to be a quick return to normal and now we're not really sure what normal looks like but with plenty of hindsight, we can ask ourselves were those the right choices.

Have we learned anything during this first year of COVID that we might take into a second year to make our employees more efficient and safer?

I think the last point I want to make sure to hit is that, think about the employees the onboarded or hired in the last year. Take a look at how they performed from a safety standpoint.

They likely were onboarding with some measure of social distancing; you may never actually met them in person before.

How are they doing? How are they doing compared to employees who are on boarded pre-COVID? Is there a point we can look and take a good look at those practices and see other ways to improve or learn from the last year?

LOUISA DESSON: Thank you. Yeah, so definitely ways to adjust and adapt to this new normal. That's great.

So, at this point, thank you for those insights. We like to turn to the questions that we've been receiving so I’m going to go through a few of those and give you the first one, Chris, we’ll stay with you. So, what if an employee is not comfortable returning to the workplace?

(DESCRIPTION)
Questions and answer section. Louisa Desson, Rich Ives, Chris Hayes, and Dr. Iglesias videos are displayed as they converse.

(SPEECH)
CHRIS HAYES: I’m going to give you my favorite answer. It’s one we really enjoy in risk control, and that is, it depends.

So, you know it, it might feel comfortable to think there is a one size fit all solution out there, but it's simply not the case for a simple, for a situation as complicated as we're facing now and what we'll see in the next year as we transition back to that more traditional workplace.

There are a number of variables, including medical conditions, other risk factors that might affect whether an individual feels comfortable returning to the workplace.

So, what employers can do is really look at this on a case by case basis. So, starting now, managers, supervisors, human resources professionals, should start contemplating these scenarios.

Review any relevant employment laws or regulations with an attorney and start laying out the strategies now in anticipation of having those conversations soon.

LOUISA DESSON: Very good, thank you.

This next question, Rich, is for you. If I’ve already vaccinated, why do I have to be tested, can I show proof of vaccination to avoid being tested?

RICH IVES: Yeah, that’s a good question and I think that really addresses one of the common misconceptions about what life looks like directly right after vaccination, right.

Because I think the context of that question can be taken either out of the, out of work life or at work where maybe you're in a you know, at risk profession where it requires some you know, on the onsite testing.

So, in this situation, we would point directly back to the CDC guidance, which is even after being vaccinated, it still may be possible to transmit the virus.

And simply not enough data is available yet on things like reinfection. People may still be susceptible to the virus after receiving the vaccine, certainly for a certain amount of time.

Maybe after that first dosage or you know for a certain period of time after maybe both dosages.

And that's why we expect that many organizations will keep most, if not all, of their safety and hygiene protocols in place, at least for the foreseeable future, based on what we know now.

LOUISA DESSON: Thank you, that certainly does help set expectations for what we can look to see in the coming months. This next question, Dr. Iglesias, I’ll start with you, so what can I do now that I’m vaccinated? Do I still need to wear a mask and social distance?

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Louisa, that's such an important question, and I’m hearing it all the time. And I think there are several reasons why we need to continue.

Some of these measures and Rich has touched upon some of them. So, let me try to list them. I think the first one is that the approved vaccines don't grant immunity right away.

It can take days after the last dose to achieve the type of immunity that we've seen in the trials that that led to their authorization. So that's the first one.

But secondly, even a 95% vaccine effectiveness, which is incredible, still has a small chance of not working in a particular individual.

Third, we don't fully know at this point if the approved vaccines will protect an individual, as Rich said, against the transmissibility.

So, I may be, I may not get COVID as an illness or a severe illness, but I may still have the virus and be able to transmit it to someone else, so that's significant.

And then I think finally, we don't know yet how the approved vaccines are going to protect an individual against some of the variants that exists today or that will exist in the future.

So, because of these things, I think that masks, although they substantially reduce respiratory droplets and even aerosols, reduce our exposure to the virus.

And wearing a mask, especially wearing it properly, and I need to underscore that, as recommended by the CDC, protects not just others but it protects also the individual who's been vaccinated.

And I think we should think of vaccination or really prevention strategies as being complementary and cumulative as opposed to isolated.

LOUISA DESSON: Very good, thank you.

Chris did you have any thoughts on this?

CHRIS HAYES: I do, I would like to just chime in a little bit on that from a business perspective and, yes, we will expect that most organizations will continue to follow the same safety protocols until the pandemic is reduced or eliminated.

I think it's important to remember that wearing a mask and social distancing is as much, if not more, about protecting others as it is about protecting ourselves.

So, we talked earlier about the possibility of transmitting the disease, even if you or the virus, even if you've been vaccinated. So yes, until we hear otherwise, even in the workspace, expect to keep your best candy.

And I’ll throw out this example, so imagine the audience is a lot like me and that we host a big Thanksgiving dinner every year, which we skipped in 2020. And I hate to think that will skip it again in 2021, but we might, because safety takes a collective effort even if it does keep us apart in some ways.

And this will apply to the workspace as much as it does at home.

LOUISA DESSON: Very good, thank you. And developing just different ways of handling and I know we were in the garage on Christmas so along with a number of others, I’m sure.

So, Dr. Iglesias this next question for you, how long will the vaccine work and will it work on different variants?

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: So, the first part of the question is really this, how long does the vaccine provide immunity for? And this is still unknown. There really hasn't been enough time lapse to be able to assess that, so data that emerges over the coming months will help answer that question.

As for the question on whether the vaccine works on variants, again data is emerging in the medical literature to show that the two vaccines that are approved in this country, so the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, are effective against the common variants that we're seeing in the United States.

So variant vigilance over the next few months will allow scientists to measure the effectiveness of the vaccines and not only the two that we have now, but other vaccines against the established, but also emerging variants and be able to then respond accordingly, with the proper measures to contain those variants.

LOUISA DESSON: Just one of the many variables to contend with this pandemic so.

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: It is, like I said at the beginning, we've learned a lot but we're learning a lot more, and we will continue to do so.

LOUISA DESSON: Very good and another question for you, Dr. Iglesias. This is on what are the long-term implications of COVID-19?

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Yeah, so I’ll start where I just finished two seconds ago.

As is the case with so much about this novel disease, we're in the process of learning that. We've discussed reinfection which, is an you know, a long-term implication of COVID. As we said earlier, it is rare at present.

Individuals with the most severe forms of COVID-19, especially if they required intensive care may have serious physical and psychological consequences after an acute episode, and this is true not only after COVID, but this is true of other critical illnesses that require ICU care or ventilation.

Now, symptoms of non-critical illness. So noncritical COVID are not uncommon after an acute episode and can include things like fatigue, shortness of breath, chest discomfort, cough.

What the literature is showing that at this time, most of these symptoms resolve in the great majority of individuals within three months. And a lot of that depends on the severity of the primary illness.

Now, on the other hand, there is no doubt that some individuals with even mild disease can have longer term symptoms and at this time, quality research around that is not there.

We need the quality research to be able to define, to understand what some individuals are calling post-acute COVID syndrome, or even Long Hauler syndrome.

It’s risk factors, it's pathophysiology, and diagnostic and treatment approaches at this time are unknown.

And the answers will come, I’m very confident, as careful research develops over the coming months and sometimes even years.

LOUISA DESSON: Just too new at this point to really know, but I think that point that it's not uncommon to have those symptoms after other illnesses is really an important point. That it's not something that is unique to COVID that might be.

DR. MARCO IGLESIAS: Yeah, that's right and again just want to be hopeful, because there are already a lot of research protocols in place, so the answer to these questions should develop over the coming months.

LOUISA DESSON: Okay good, thank you.

So, we have time for one more question. Chris, this one for you. What are the impacts to hiring and job description changes?

CHRIS HAYES: I think it's safe to assume that whatever process you have for hiring and onboarding in 2019 is not working the same in 2021.

And virtually every job has changed in some way in the past 12 months and I’ll go back to the example earlier about a store or restaurant that's gone from having customers come in to moving more towards delivery or curbside pickup.

Those jobs have changed. Has your job description changed, not only your safety protocols, but things like you were transitional duty job bank? Has that changed to keep up with what's happened in your operation?

Then are you hiring differently because the expectations are now different for those roles.

So definitely think keeping that sharp eye. Take a critical look at your operations and what's really changed and how do you need to adapt to it, is absolutely worth doing through every permutation of this.

You know I'm going to go back to what Rich said what Dr. Iglesias said, that one of the biggest challenges we see is building an engaged team, in an environment where people are onboarded remotely or when social distancing keeps you from really being hands on during orientation.

And I think about any environment where we're in a factory, a warehouse, we have people doing physical labor, manual labor, where there's a risk of injury. In the past, we might have had really direct observations in those early days.

And giving direct feedback and do modeling of what the right actions are hard to do in today's environment for a variety of reasons. And that's why Rich, Dr. Iglesias, we really have this focus on making sure that that employee engagement is there and and keeping sure that management continues to be engaged and takes a fresh, critical look at policy is the most important part of this.

And I’ll just say one thing to close this out. This sounds like a tough story, but it doesn't have to be.

We're always facing challenges in organizations. We're always facing new risks, and new opportunities, and we can always adapt.

And just having an open mind and be able to adapt those changes is key. And again, I’ll throw myself out there as another example.

I changed roles at Travelers early in the pandemic and suddenly I was working on new projects with a new team, some of whom are on this call today, and we didn't know each other before.

I have a whole new reporting structure with some people who I’ve actually, some people who I have actually never met in person and who I’ve not seen since this started.

But we kept an open mind, we kept flexible, we use technology like this to stay connected, and it's worked out very well.

So, you know, there are challenges ahead but they are things we could overcome and still get through it and still be well through.

LOUISA DESSON: It certainly is some new constraints but being flexible and using some of the newer tools that are available to us can help us connect more virtually and in person, so. Some really great points. Thank you to all the panelists for publicly sharing your thoughts on this challenging topic that continues to evolve.

I think we've heard three clear takeaways that can help us today and into the future.
To continue safety protocols to communicate with employees, both what to expect and to check in on them and see how they're doing during all of this.

And also to learn from the past, to create safer conditions, training procedures that can help everyone be healthy and as productive as possible so.

Thank you to everyone in the audience for joining us today. You can learn more about these issues at constitutionstateservices.com and at travelers.com.

And I’ll turn it over to Justin.

JUSTIN SMULISON: All right, I would like to thank Dr. Marcos Iglesias, Rich Ives, Chris Hayes for their time and expertise, and of course Louisa Desson of Travelers for being such a terrific moderator.

We've got some fantastic insight and engagement as Louisa just said. As a reminder this webinar will be archived on episode and risk knowledge within one business week.

There you can also find the October 15, 2020, webinar which was hosted by Constitution States Services, it was titled “Bring Together Art Science and You and TPA Predictive Analytics.”

And the November 12, 2020, session: Workers Compensation and the Changing Nature of Work for Remote and Onsite Employees.

We also invite you to view upcoming rooms webinars. You can register@rims.org/webinars. Additionally, registration for RIMS live 2021 is now open, used to be called our annual conference and it's called RIMS live 2021. This all virtual event will be April 19 to the 29th register by visiting rims.org/events. Thank you all around the world and stay safe.