OSHA’s Infectious Disease Rule Still on Track, Officials Say

Plans continue on a long-running effort to protect health-care workers from airborne infectious illnesses, with OSHA officials saying Wednesday that an eventual proposed rule would focus on facilities where staffers are “routinely exposed” to diseases like tuberculosis and Covid-19.

That definition would include hospitals, nursing homes, primary care doctors’ offices, emergency medical facilities, funeral homes, biomedical laboratories, and medical clinics located within other workplaces such as factories, said Jessica Schifano, director of the agency’s Office of Biological Hazards.

The US Occupational Health and Safety Administration began working on an infectious disease rule more than a dozen years ago during the ...