On Thursday, June 6, Cal/OSHA updated its COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards Frequency Asked Questions to address how CDPH’s December 30, 2021 isolation guidance affected, if at all, the current Cal/OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard (Cal ETS).

(as of January 4, 2022)

As we enter Year 3 of the COVID-19 pandemic, the regulatory situation in California has never been so confusing, inconsistent, and ever-changing. As the Omicron variant has come to dominate the U.S. landscape, the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments on the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s (“OSHA”) Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) which seeks to implement a “vaccine or test” program for all employers with 100 or more employees in the United States.

Federal OSHA filed a notice with the Federal Register on November 4, 2021, announcing a new emergency temporary standard to protect more than 84 million workers from the spread of coronavirus on the job.  Under the standard, covered employers must develop, implement and enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy, unless they adopt a policy requiring employees to choose to either be vaccinated or undergo regular COVID-19 testing and wear a face covering at work.