The proposed standard would likely require employers to create a company-specific plan to minimize worker exposure to COVID-19. The rule is expected to mandate mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing breaks, and communication procedures for workers during outbreaks. The new standard, which many feel is long overdue, is expected to protect the most at-risk workers.

Those performing such “aerosol-generating” procedures, often in an intensive care unit, got the best protective gear even if there wasn’t enough to go around, per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. And for anyone else working with COVID patients, until a month ago, a surgical mask was considered sufficient. A new wave of research now shows that several of those procedures were not the most hazardous. Recent studies have determined that a basic cough produces about 20 times more particles than intubation, a procedure one doctor likened to the risk of being next to a nuclear reactor.

In a recent study of COVID-19 patients hospitalized with severe acute respiratory infection, functional impairment was found in 53.8% of patients four months after hospital discharge. Long COVID symptoms include cough, shortness of breath, anxiety and depression, cardiac issues, fatigue, deconditioning, and hair loss.