Coronavirus: Stop employees with mild cough, low-grade fever from coming to work – Trade Minister to employers

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Alan Kojo Kyeremanteng has announced that as part of enhanced measures to curb the rising spread of COVID-19 in work places, employees must send workers who report to work with symptoms such as mild cough or low-grade fever from coming to work.

Speaking at the Minister’s Press Briefing this morning, the minister said beyond the regular measures such as regular handwashing, mandatory wearing of nose masks and gloves for industrial workers, as well as the checking of temperature for workers and customers, industries must ensure that workers who report to work with fever are sent home and encouraged to seek medical attention.

“We are also proposing enhanced restrictions which we believe are necessary if we want to keep our industrial establishments safe. Number one: stop employees with mild cough or low-grade fever from coming to work and seek medical care,” he cautioned.

The minister went ahead to highlight other restrictions industries must follow which include the need to stagger schedules by breaking their workforce into shifts. He also called for a limitation on in house meetings by making use of online platforms as well as allowing employees to work virtually if possible.

Mr Kyeremanteng who also spoke on some measure needed to be adopted by retail outlets and shopping malls said they should regulate the number of customers entering their shops and also ensure that they mark their floors for social distancing purposes.

The minister also urged the shopping malls and retail outlets to encourage the use of digital payments in order to limit the use of cash for transactions which has been identified as one of the transmission mediums for the COVID-19 virus.

For sometime now Ghana has been recording outbreaks of COVID-19 in industrial work places. The biggest of such outbreak happened in May when one person who contracted the virus is reported to have infected over 500 workers at a fish processing factory in Tema.