COVID-19 Return to ResearchBe Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe (and Be Patient)

Committee

Chair: Laurel SchaferDan Bizzotto, Ken MacFarlane, Julie McNutt, Tony Mittertreiner, Glenn Sammis,

Lily Southcott, Helen Wright

A Complete Plan for Faculty:

Measures for a Safe Return to Research In Chemistry –All Researchers and PIs must read and sign

Principal Investigator Return to Research Plan – Parts 1, 2 & 3 –Submit as Instructed and once Approved, Permission for Research is Granted

Ensure Signage and Checklists are Appropriately Posted

Check Sign In/Sign Out Daily for your Shifts

Outline

Overview of Measures

Completing your Return to Research Plan

Working with Shops

Working with Services

How you can Support our “Frontline Researchers”

Departmental Organization for Research

COVID-19 Return to Work Safety PlanDepartmental Policies and Guidelines

Objectives

Goal: prepare a work plan to enable a return to research that will be sustainable

1. provide a safe work environment and ensure compliance with changing UBC policy

2. prevent complete shutdown of research effort in the case of a positive test

3. provide a method/documentation to facilitate contact tracing

4. provide confidence in a safe work environment by demonstrating success in Phase 1 for aswift transition to Phase 2

Travel to/from UBC

• Transit options:• UPASS(?)• Mask encouraged• Frequency / bypass issues

• Car/bicycle/walk

Departmental Common Spaces

• Maintain physical distancing• One person in elevator only• Reduce travel through dept• Some stairwells (A wing) one way

• Washrooms are high risk areas• Single occupancy – check before entering• Diligent handwashing, no face touching, physical distancing

• Masks/face shields expected: try to limit face touching• Hand washing: do it very often (entering rooms, before/after using multiuser equipment)• Surface cleaning: over-do-it, can’t be too clean (e.g., door handles, drawer knobs,

work/desktops etc)• spray bottle & paper towels provided to each lab/person (TBD)

Office/Social Spaces

Social Space• Enjoy breaks/meals outside• Breaks inside: B250 to be used: maintain social distancing• Avoid food prep if possible

• disinfect microwave, coffee maker before & after use

Offices/Meeting Rooms• One person per office, if working from home is not possible• No in person meetings (Phase 1)• Disinfect office: high touch items (door knobs, keyboards, mouse etc.)• Personal laptops: keep at home, or disinfect

COVID-19 Return to Work Safety PlanLaboratory Policies and Guidelines

Directives from the VPRI

- Each building can only have 1/3 of normal (pre-COVID-19) occupancy.

- Only those who need access to the building will be allowed to return.

- This first phase will last approximately 1 month.

New issues that need to be addressed

- Shared equipment are risk factors for COVID-19 transmission.

- Operating without records of personnel and work hours makes contact tracing impossible, andcan lead to further research curtailment.

- Decreased laboratory personnel increase the possibility of working alone.

Mitigating the risks of shared equipment

- Shared equipment must be cleaned at the beginning and end of each day.- A record of the cleaning must be kept in the laboratory.

- Common equipment should also be cleaned after each use.

Cleaning schedule for common equipment

Other laboratory safety items to consider

- Lab coat and safety glasses sequestering to prevent cross-contamination.

- Cleaning of sample vials/tubes/equipment that are submitted to shared facilities.

Mitigating Risks of Working AloneBuddy System and Risk Assessments

Laboratory “Buddy System”

- At the beginning of the day, laboratory personnel are to identify a co-worker/supervisor who willregularly check up on the well-being of the researcher during the course of the workday.

- Before high risk experiments are conducted, the “buddy” must be notified so that they can bepresent during the experiment.

- The designated “buddy” must also be notified when the researcher leaves for the day.

Formal Risk Assessments

- Risk assessments are formal methods to determine whether an experiment is “high risk”.

- High risk experiments require additional supervisor oversight.

- Formal, written risk assessments are already required by WorkSafeBC.

- During the initial return to work phase, they are especially critical due to the reduced staffinglevels.

Measures to Facilitate Contact TracingTracking Personnel Hours and Working in Shifts

Tracking Personnel Hours

Each person who is returning to work must check in and check out when working in the Chemistry Department. This serves two purposes:

1) By maintaining this record of who was in the building on what days, we can assistProvincial authorities with contact tracing

2) With faculty working from home, it provides essential oversight documentation(needed for WorkSafeBC).

Dividing Research Group into Shifts

- Each laboratory will be divided into two shifts. This serves two purposes:

1) It will ensure that our building is at, or below 1/3 occupancy.

2) It will maximize the chance that if one shift is shutdown, the other can continue towork.

- A supervisor must maintain an up-to-date list of personnel for each shift.

- This list must be posted in every laboratory.

- Crossing over between shifts is not allowed during Phase 1.

Check in – Check Out TrackingPart of our “Returning to work safely” plan

Objectives

The Check In-Check Out application serves two purposes:

1. Document the plan for research staffing forfuture days, and

2. To document who was actually on campus onpast days.

In the event of a student or staff member testing positive for Covid-19, we will have a record of their workplace contacts

CHICO: Check In Check Out

How it works:

1 You will have a “room” designated for your labs in the booking system application.

2

3 You will enter booking for each piece of equipment, assigning researchers and trainees according to which shifts they are on.

4 Shared items like rotovaps or instruments can be added to the equipment list to allow them to be booked as well

You will provide a list of equipment that requires scheduling… we will populate that equipment in the App.

5 Each day, trainees and staff should update the room booking app to reflect whether they actually came on campus

1

CHICO – Check In Check Out

More details:

1 The day view shows who’s scheduled on eachpiece of equipment for the day

2

3

4

Dr Smith has people working at odd numbered fume hoods today…even number fumehoods will be used on the next shift.

1

In this example, the date has already passed, so the researchers have replaced the original booking with their actual time spent on campus.

The GC/MS was booked by Fred… Fred will be sure to disinfect the GC/MS before and after use!

QWETBAF (Questions we expect to be asked frequently)

Q Do I have to use this app?

A Yes

Q Do I have to put all equipment in my lab into this app?

A The schedules of your students and staff must be entered into the app.Contact Tony if mapping schedules to fume hoods doesn’t work for your lab. We can set up your room differently.

Q How do I get started?

A Send an email to irene.oh@chem.ubc.caSubject: Chico setup for Dr. __________

In the email, please list the equipment that will be tied to schedules, as well as any shared equipment that you want to make bookable.

Q What if I want to make changes to my room setup later.

A Not a problem, you will be able to add or modify the names of resources in your rooms.

Shops and Services RestartResearch Support Plan

Glass shop: Normal hours

EES and MES: • Start with normal hours but ½ staff. Staff will work either 2 or 3 days per week, similar shift

pattern to research• With CUPE 116 agreement, will change to longer days and will match research shifts….likely in

July or August.

Students will not have access to shops.

Requisitions will be submitted on line.

Glass Shop, EES, MES

E- Requisitions

Electronic requisitions for the shop are based on the Stores Requisition web app.

• Requisitions can be submitted without approval of P.I. (unlike stores req that requires approval)

• P.I. will have visibility to any requisitions against their speed charts.

• Users can track requisition assignment and completion on line. Automatic emails will notify customers

of status changes.

Peter C is working on this. If it’s not ready for start of business, we will ask users to email their

requisition requests to supervisors.

Information Technology

Staff in IT will predominantly work from home

Staff will not be assigned to a specific shift

Dave Wu will come on campus as needed to deal with helpdesk issues that can’t be resolved remotely.

Item drop off or pickup for IT will be at the EES reception desk.

Mass Spec Phase 1 Plan

Researchers will not have access to the Mass Spec lab.

All mass spec and E.A. will be technician run

No air sensitive samples for Mass Spec or EA (too much customer interaction with technician is required)

• Understand that this is painful, we will look for way to restart this as soon as possible.

Stations will be set up for customers to drop off samples

NMR Phase 1 Plan

Researchers will not have access to the NMR labs.

All samples will be run by technicians

Stations will be set up for customers to drop off samples

Maria will run samples in B460.

We are working on getting two additional technicians to run the samples that would normally be run by

researchers

No training will be conducted until self service is reinstated.

X-Ray Phase 1 Plan

Researchers will not have access to the X-Ray labs.

All samples will be run by technicians

Stations will be set up for customers to drop off samples

No training will be conducted until self service is reinstated.

Bio-services Phase 1 Plan

Researchers will have access to BioServices.

Each room will have a maximum occupancy posted (1 or 2 people)

Training will be limited to simpler tasks

Autoclaving will be staff run

Lab safety and orientation will be moved to video/on line.

BioServices manager will coordinate new policies directly with customers.

LASIR Phase 1 Plan

Researchers will have access to LASIR

One researcher per station/bench.

Researchers will clean equipment before and after use, with guidance from Saeid with respect to

appropriate cleaning methods.

SIF Phase 1 Plan

SIF will be open and staffed 3 days per week, with Zoom support other days

Masks to be worn by customers at all times.

Customers must clean instruments before and after use

No training will be conducted in Phase 1.

No walkup…all access must be made through the SIF booking system.

Up to 4 people can be in the SIF at one time

Stores Phase 1 Plan

Stores will be open 5 days per week, with 3 staff on site

Customers will not enter stores.

Customers will order on line and pick up items when directed by an Email.

Pick up from 10-11 AM and 2-3 PM.

PPE is controlled by UBC. Labs need to have an assessment done by SRS PRIOR to ordering masks, gloves,

or respirators.

Purchasing and receiving are operational, items can be ordered now.

COVID safety supplies - Phase 1 Plan

Stores and teaching lab techs will mix and bottle hand sanitizer (using the WHO recommended mix of

ethanol, glycerol, hydrogen peroxide) and disinfectant spray (80% dilute ethanol)

Stores is acquiring spray bottles (600) and hand sanitizer dispensers (about 100). These will be assigned

to labs and will be brought to stores to be refilled.

MES is making plexiglass shield for some areas. Shields in frames can be purchased from global industrial

https://www.globalindustrial.ca/c/office-school-supply/boards/freestanding

CGSS COVID-19 SurveyGrad students/post-doc responses of return to work concerns

Major Concerns

Work from home

• ~ 30 % of student responses want continued regular meetings

• More realistic goals and expectations from PIs would be helpful during work from home

Productivity expectations

• ~50 % of responses regard supervisors productivity expectations

• Return to work is LIMITED and will be inefficient in Phase 1 (June)

• Productivity will NOT return to levels before shut down immediately

Accountability concerns

• How will we make sure people are following protocols

• Determining equitable shifts/essential experiments

Major Concerns

“Since the quarantine started, I have struggled with productivity and my motivation to work”

~ 75 % of responses agree/strongly agree

“Sometimes I feel I am not working hard enough and I feel ‘grad student guilt’”

~ 71 % of responses agree/strongly agree

Concerns – Mental Health

Acknowledgement of students’ mental health struggles is necessary

• Engagement beyond work-focused/productivity-driven

• How are your students coping with being isolated and losing productive time?

• Positive responses from students when supervisors support work-life balance and promote hobbies/interests outside ofwork

• Negative responses from students – lack of ‘checking in’ or meetings, feelings of isolation and disconnection due to lack ofsocial contact

Non-medical masks

• The use of non-medical masks is encouraged in the chemistry department inhighly frequented areas.

• CGSS has purchased reusable, cloth masks for the department that will arrive~June 10

• One available for each grad student/PDF/employee – we will be in contact withthe department to coordinate pick up/drop off for labs when they have arrived

Disclaimer: Non-medical masks have limitations and risks associated

Masks Disclaimer

Non-medical masks are NOT PPE

Non-medical masks have limitations and risks associated:

• Do not protect the person wearing them as they do not seal to the face

• Do not offer complete protection for others if the wearer is ill

• False sense of security

• Self contamination – must be frequently changed/laundered

• Have potential to cause breathing difficulties and could be dangerous to wearer with underlyinghealth conditions

Non-medical masks are NOT a replacement for physical distancing