As part of the government’s three-step framework to return from lockdown, workplaces and premises are required to develop a COVIDsafe plan.

A COVIDsafe plan is a risk assessment with respect to COVID-19 which identifies what could happen if someone is exposed to a hazard, in this case, COVID-19, and the likelihood of it occurring.

The exposure of your workers and/or customers/clients to COVID-19 is a foreseeable risk that must be assessed and managed in the context of your operating environment.[1]

Should you have a COVID-19 outbreak at your premises, you may need to demonstrate that you have taken adequate steps to protect their health and safety.

Assessing and managing risk is a core function that security industry provides, and an area in which it has developed extensive skills and capabilities. As such, there is a great deal of value that the security industry can offer to organisations as they return to their places of business.

In the first instance, security specialists and consultants may be able to assist you in identifying and assessing the risks that are associated with your place of business as well as the development or plans to manage these risks to a tolerable level.

In addition to assisting in the development of your COVIDsafe plan, there may be opportunities to utilise your security technology to support this plan.

Many places of business have security technology in place that may be able to assist in managing your COVID-19 risk either through modified usage or with some modifications. In this article, we take a look at some of the ways in which this can be achieved.

Occupancy Management

As we progress through the phases of the Three Step Framework for a COVIDsafe Australia, different thresholds for people in an area will need to be enforced.

While we’re in phase 1, limiting occupancy to ten people is a relatively straight forward task. As this increase to twenty, then one hundred people, it becomes more challenging.

For spaces with controlled entries and exits such as offices it may be possible to use your electronic access control system (EACS) to enforce these limits. To do so, you will require an EACS that supports occupancy management, then implement a strict badge in badge out policy so that every entry and exit is recorded

For moderate sized spaces such as retail stores with a limited number of entries, you may be able to utilise your people counting systems, or your CCTV system to provide a count of the number of people entering and exiting the premises.

For larger spaces such as shopping centres and clubs, you may need to manage both the total number of people on site as well as ensuring that that crowding does not occur in the various spaces. Whilst more complex, this can be achieved using a combination of technologies such as people counters to measure the total occupancy, as well as video analytics for crowd counting.

Contact Tracing

Should a person who tests positive to COVID be determined to have been in your premises, you will most likely need to determine who else was on site at that time. The more accurately you can record this, the less of your workforce that is likely to be impacted.

By implementing strict access control policies, you can achieve an accurate log of who was in a space at the time that the COVID positive person was in that space.

Visitor Management

Depending on the nature of your premises, a visitor management system provides a powerful tool to assist in contact tracing.

Many visitor management systems allow for the inclusion additional information fields – these can be used to ask the basic COVID risk questions such as recent travel, fever, contact with a known COVID case etc.

You may also wish to have all visitors pre-register and take measures to both reduce the total number of visitors and ensure that the total expected number of visitors and staff are not going to exceed occupancy limits.

Automation

Items that are handled by many people such as doors and exit buttons are potential transmission sources for COVID-19. Depending on the layout of your site, you may be able to utilise technologies such as Facial Recognition, License Plate Recognition, or touch free exit sensors to reduce the number of surfaces that a user needs to interact with.

Thermal Cameras

There has recently been a good deal of discourse about using thermal CCTV Cameras for fever detection. Whilst there may be a few edge cases where the use of any thermal camera will assist in reducing COVID risk, infected people are contagious for up to five days before they display symptoms such as a fever and a large number of cases are asymptomatic, so none of these will be detected by a thermal camera.

If you have an environment in which you need to screen large numbers of people and your risk assessment has shown that fever detection is a required control, then you should probably invest in a medical grade camera as these offer the required accuracy.

Of course none of these controls reduce the requirement to ensure that good hygiene practices are observed such as hand washing or sanitisation, distancing, and ensuring adequate separation between staff.

There are also a lot of process related actions an organisation can take to reduce their COVID risk as discussed in our previous article.

If you would like assistance developing your COVIDsafe plan get in touch with us today.

Simon Pollak is a security professional with more than 25 years’ experience in physical and cyber security, smart buildings, and automation systems. A licensed security consultant and CISSP, he holds a Masters of Cyber Security and a Masters of Business Administration (Technology).

Simon Pollak is the principal consultant at STSC

You can follow him at https://au.linkedin.com/in/simonpollak

[1] https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/covid-19-information-workplaces/industry-information/general-industry-information/risk-assessment?