It should be noted, and I have mentioned before, the decisions that are regulating on who can work and how they can work are being made by County Health Services Directors across the state. Sonoma County Health Services Director is Dr. Mase. Dr Mase reports directly to the Governor’s Office. The County Board of Supervisors do not control nor influence directly any decision made by Dr. Mase. With that bit of information I present to you the latest and greatest from the 6 Bay Area Counties Health Services Directors as to new work protocols. Undoubtedly Dr. Mase is reviewing the protocols for the 6 bay area counties and may institute them for Sonoma County, modify them, or may ignore them. We shall see in the next day or two.
The effective date for these protocols in May 4, 2020.
From the helpful folks at United Contractors, here is the new Covid-19 Protocol for Large Projects: link
From the helpful folks at United Contractors, here is the new Covid-19 Protocol for Small Projects: link
As you can imagine, things are happening by the hour, not by the day. I have been researching this since it came out yesterday, and rest assured, we will report on any new news on this. I have been unable to ascertain why Sonoma County has been “late” (at least later than they had promised) with their new Health Order on loosening construction shutdown protocol. I suspect they may be wrestling with this Health Order that is now in place in the six Bay Area Counties.
Honestly, in an attempt to loosen construction shutdown rules, these new safety protocol requirements are unworkable. How on earth can this industry find, prepare the forms, modify their safety manual, train the JSOS and hire a 3rd party JSAS (read the Protocol to see what these are please) by May 4, 2020? That would be impossible. I know United Contractors is pushing back hard, so I would suspect more new news will be forthcoming within hours on this subject.
I had another Soapbox all written but this was such monumental news I canned the Soapbox and went with this new Protocol.
Stay tuned—If in the next few hours we see these protocols being enforced, the ECA will be setting up through a third party access for ECA Members to get the information/training/help they need to comply.
That’s All Folks!
