Wearing a mask in closed places will no longer be compulsory from next Monday, except in public transport and health establishments. In companies too, the constraint will fall. And not just her: the company health protocol will also “disappear” next week , Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne announced on LCI on Tuesday, just over two weeks after being modified for the last time.
Since its first publication at the end of the first confinement in May 2020, there have been countless versions that have followed one another, sometimes relaxed when the epidemic marked time, sometimes hardened when a new wave started.
A two-sided
The social partners were informed of this on Monday evening. “Everything is fine on the virus side now that Putin is here,” grinned one of the meeting participants. He, like the others, admits a relief in the face of the lifting of the constraints. “We welcome the news with satisfaction but caution”, however tempers one of them, pointing to the slight resumption of Covid cases in recent days in France, and in most European countries.
Instead of the 25 pages of the protocol, the Ministry of Labor will put online this Wednesday a “landmark guide” which takes up a double-sided page. Emphasizing that vaccination “still remains strongly recommended”, he recalls the persistence of hygiene measures such as regular hand washing and sneezing in one’s elbow as well as the obligation to ventilate the premises. Added to this is “prevention of the risks of hand-held contamination” which requires regular cleaning of contact points and objects.
However, the precautions concerning so-called vulnerable people (cardiovascular history, heart failure, severe diabetes, obesity, etc.) are maintained with the maintenance of 100% teleworking and, failing that, compensation by Health Insurance. The management of contact cases, which was specified in the protocol, is no longer detailed but referred to the system applied by Health Insurance.
“No legal value like the protocol”
“The benchmark guide is there to recall the existing law and refer to useful resources for companies, it has no legal value like the protocol”, specifies the Ministry of Labor.
The employer nevertheless retains the responsibility “to assess the risks of exposure to the virus”, to “implement preventive measures aimed at eliminating the risks at source”, to “reduce as much as possible exposure which cannot be deleted “and to” favor collective protection measures “, recalls the guide. “The risk for the employer to engage his responsibility if one of his employees contracts the Covid remains”, underlines a lawyer specialized in occupational health.
For the time being, cases of recognition of occupational disease remain limited in number. According to the latest known statistics at the end of September 2021, 5,018 complete applications for recognition of occupational disease were filed with Health Insurance, 82% of which concern caregivers. A total of 1,690 of these files were taken care of.
Employees suspended back with the end of the pass
The end of the vaccination pass this Monday will sound the reinstatement of employees in the sectors where it was compulsory, three and a half months before the deadline of July 31, the date until which the legislator had authorized its application. Does the employer have to inform him of this beforehand? Is the employee required to report from the 14th? The vagueness persists for the moment on the terms of return to work.
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