New from the Center for Health Security: Operational Toolkit for Businesses Considering Reopening or Expanding Operations in COVID-19

May 7, 2020 – The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health has released a new tool to help business owners who are considering reopening or expanding their operations to determine their establishments’ risk of transmission of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and how to reduce it.

As health officials have noted, the resumption of activities comes with significant risks of increased transmission. While decisions about the timing, order, and circumstances of business reopening or expanding business operations will remain with local, state, and federal authorities and will need to be guided by public health principles, businesses should begin their planning for reopening or expanding operations. This should include assessing their individual operations and determining what measures can be implemented to decrease their risk of transmission. This new toolkit is meant to help large and small businesses alike.

With this toolkit, business leaders can work through a 4-stage process to calculate and understand their risk, and they can get examples of mitigation measures to increase the safety of their employees and customers.

 The “Operational Toolkit for Businesses Considering Reopening or Expanding Operations in COVID-19” consists of 3 parts.

1. Instruction Manual: instructions that explain how to complete the accompanying Business Risk Worksheet and Assessment Calculator.
2. Business Risk Worksheet: a step-by-step worksheet for owners to report and understand their business’s overall risk of spreading COVID-19 and how business operations can be made safer.
3. Assessment Calculator: an Excel spreadsheet for business owners to fill out to receive a calculated risk score and a modification score after completing stages 1 and 2.

You can access the toolkit here.