EEOC: Employers will need to assess whether current and individual workplace circumstances justify screening and testing of employees. Image: Jarun Ontakrai/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe EEOC has revised its guidance on testing for the Coronavirus in workplaces, guidance that applies to the federal government setting because the policies are rooted EEO laws that apply there as well as in the private sector.
Those laws include the Americans with Disabilities Act, under which a COVID-19 test is considered a “medical examination”; the ADA requires that any mandatory medical test of employees be “job-related and consistent with business necessity.”
The new guidance “makes clear that going forward employers will need to assess whether current pandemic circumstances and individual workplace circumstances justify viral screening testing of employees to prevent workplace transmission of COVID-19,” said EEOC.
“This change is not meant to suggest that such testing is or is not warranted,” it said, but rather reflects that “evolving pandemic circumstances will require an individualized assessment by employers to determine whether such testing is warranted consistent with the requirements of the ADA . . . If an employer seeks to implement screening testing for employees such testing must meet the business necessity standard based on relevant facts,” it said.
“Possible considerations” include: community transmission levels; the vaccination status of employees; the accuracy and speed of processing for different types of COVID-19 viral tests; and the degree to which breakthrough infections are possible for employees who are fully vaccinated.
Also: the level of transmissibility of current variants; the possible severity of illness from those variants; what types of contacts employees may have with others in the workplace or elsewhere that they are required to work such as working with medically vulnerable individuals; and the potential impact on operations if an employee enters the workplace with COVID-19.
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