COVID-19 Guidelines & Procedures

Guidelines and Procedures for Limiting the Effects of COVID-19 to Kenan Institute Employees, Partners and Visitors

The Kenan Institute for the Arts presents the following guidelines and procedures for using all spaces in which we work and host programs, including the main office at 1722 South Main Street, the Creative Community Lab at 300 S. Liberty Street, and Creative CoWorks at 500 W. 5th Street, Suite 300.

This document was developed using the Guide to Reopening the Arts created by Arts NC, and Atul Gawande’s article, Amid The Coronavirus Crisis, A Regimen for Reentry published May 13, 2020 in The New Yorker Magazine.

Inspired by Mr. Gawande’s article, these guidelines and procedures adopt a four-pronged approach:

• Hygiene
• Distancing
• Screening
• Masks

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Hygiene

Hand washing

• Frequent washing of hands with soap is vital to help combat the spread of any virus. When a sink is available, employees and visitors should wash their hands for 20 seconds and dry them thoroughly with a disposable towel or dryer.
• As a backup, employees and visitors may use a hand sanitizer containing at least 60-percent alcohol or 70-percent isopropanol when a sink is not available.
• All employees and visitors should thoroughly wash their hands immediately upon entering the space
• All employees and visitors should wash their hands every 60 minutes
• After washing hands, avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth. If you do touch your eyes, nose and mouth, follow up with thorough handwashing.
• Cover cough or sneeze with a tissue, or an elbow or shoulder if no tissue is available, and follow up with thorough handwashing.
• Employees and visitors should also wash their hands after using the restroom, sneezing, touching their face, blowing their nose, cleaning, smoking, eating, or drinking.

Common surfaces should be wiped down two times per day, once by the first person to enter the space, and once more at mid-day. Staff members can be responsible for their individual office space and equipment. This is meant to include the following:

• Building features
  • External door handles
  • Interior office and closet door handles
• Kitchen:
  • Sink and Faucets
  • Refrigerator and dishwasher handles
  • Trash receptacle touchpoints
  • Cabinet handles
  • Soap dispensers
• Bathrooms:
  • Sink and faucet
  • Toilet flush handle
  • Doorknobs
  • Trash receptacle touchpoints
  • Soap dispensers
• Common Furniture
  • Conference tables
  • Chairs
  • Trash receptacle touchpoints
• Technology
  • Phone receivers
  • Touch screens
  • All copier surfaces
• Office Supplies
  • Employees should not share office supplies, such as markers, staplers, hole punches, etc.
  • If sharing is unavoidable, please wear gloves
• Individual offices
  • Door handles
  • Trash receptacle touchpoints
  • Cabinet handles
  • Telephones, computers, other keypads, mouse

Office cleaning

• All spaces will be cleaned one time per week
• Last employee to leave should check trash before leaving. Public trash receptacles should be emptied every day.
• Each employees should collect and discard their own food trash before leaving

Disinfecting technique

• High-touch areas should be disinfected using materials effective against COVID-19. We will be following recommendations of the Environmental Services Department at UNCSA.
• Always follow instructions regarding the minimum contact time a disinfectant must remain on a surface to be effective.

Disposal

• Place gloves and other disposable items used for cleaning and disinfecting in a bag that can be tied up before disposing of them with other waste.

Documentation

• A cleaning checklist will be prominently posted in each space. Please initial the checklist upon completing each cleaning task to document that all required steps were followed at the correct intervals. These cleaning logs will be maintained and stored in Kenan Institute records.

Distancing

• We will follow state and local guidelines on size of events, which is less than 10 people indoors as of May 27, 2020
• All employees and visitors should maintain a distance of six feet between individuals
• If any work requires employees to be closer than six feet, efforts should be made to form a “work pairing” in which two people routinely work together, but maintain six feet of distance from everyone else

Screening

All employees strongly urged to monitor symptoms and stay home with the emergence of even mild symptoms that are not explained by an underlying medical or allergic condition, such as a new fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell, or even just nasal congestion or a runny nose.

If employees or visitors exhibit symptoms of acute respiratory illness upon arrival at work or become sick during the day, they must separate from other workers and leave the space immediately.

Responding to Confirmed Cases Of COVID-19

• If an employee or guest is confirmed to be infected with COVID-19, their supervisor should notify the designated point person, who should immediately take the following actions:
  • Determine and document the circumstances and what areas of the space were visited, used, or impacted by the infected employee or guest (the “impacted areas”).
  • Assess whether the employee or guest was put in close contact (less than six feet/two meters) with other employees or visitors, and whether their duties created any specific transmission risks, such as handling documents, sharing markers, using the same phone, etc
  • Notify the impacted employees or that they may have had contact with an infected worker and encourage them to monitor their health and report any concerns to their healthcare provider.
  • At the Creative Community Lab and Creative CoWorks, building management should be notified of the event of an employee or guest who has become diagnosed as infected with COVID-19.
  • Confidentiality: In all instances of responding to and notification of COVID-19 infections, the infected employee’s or guest’s name or other identifying information will not be shared by the Kenan Institute in providing the above described notification. The Kenan Institute will take the strictest measures to safeguard every employee’s medical history.
  • Any employee who tests positive for COVID-19 should remain in home isolation for 10 days after symptoms begin or 72 hours after the fever is gone without fever-reducing medication, whichever is longer. These guidelines are from the CDC; local rules may vary.

Masks

• All employees and visitors should wear masks or face coverings when entering the building from the outside
• Employees and visitors should also wear masks when unable to maintain six feet of separation from other employees and when using common, high-touch areas such as restrooms, kitchens, and the copier/supply areas

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Please rest assured that the Kenan Institute is concerned with the safety and health of all employees and visitors to the Kenan Institute office, Creative Community Lab and Creative CoWorks. Suggestions, commends and concerns should be addressed with the Executive Director, Business Manager or any staff member. We can be reached at (336) 770-1432.

by Liza Vest
Edited June 26, 2020