OSHA terminates development of COVID standard to focus on infectious diseases

The U.S. Department of Labor on Wednesday announced that its Occupational Safety and Health Administration has terminated its COVID-19 health care rulemaking.

On June 21, 2021, OSHA issued an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect workers from COVID-19 in health care settings, a document of guidelines that also served as a proposed rule on which OSHA requested comments.

The agency received public input on this proposal during multiple comment periods and public hearings from June 2021 through May 2022. OSHA submitted a draft final COVID-19 rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Dec. 7, 2022.

On April 10, 2023, President Joe Biden signed into law House Joint Resolution 7, which terminated the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

OSHA says it is now terminating the rulemaking “because the most effective and efficient use of agency resources to protect health care workers from occupational exposure to COVID-19, as well as a host of other infectious diseases, is to focus its resources on the completion of an Infectious Diseases rulemaking for health care.”