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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 116 / Monday, June 21, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
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access to the names entered on the log in order to interview employees at the workplace, and to access employee personnel and medical records.
Q. Reporting OSHA has required employers to report work-related fatalities and certain work-related hospitalizations under its recordkeeping regulation since 1971.
These requirements have been an important part of the agencys statutory mission to assure safe and healthful working conditions for all working men and women. All employers covered by the OSH Act, including employers who are partially exempt from maintaining injury and illness records, are required to comply with OSHA reporting requirements at 29 CFR 1904.39. Under OSHAs current reporting regulation, employers are required to report each work-related fatality to OSHA within 8
hours of the event, and each workrelated in-patient hospitalization, amputation, and loss of an eye within 24 hours of the event.
The purpose of the reporting requirement in 1904.39 is to provide OSHA with information to determine whether it is necessary for the agency to conduct an immediate investigation at a specific establishment. Employer reports of work-related COVID19
fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations are an important element of the agencys efforts to reduce occupational exposure to the virus. After receiving an employer report, OSHA decides whether an inspection is needed to determine the cause of a work-related COVID19
fatality or in-patient hospitalization, and whether any OSHA standards may have been violated. These reports are critical for the agency to respond quickly to COVID19 exposure that may pose an ongoing risk to other employees at the worksite. Timely investigation also allows OSHA to view evidence at a workplace soon after a work-related COVID19 fatality or in-patient hospitalization has occurred, and can make it easier for the agency to gather relevant information from others at the worksite that might be useful in protecting other employees. Moreover, prompt inspection enables OSHA to gather information to evaluate whether its current standards adequately address the workplace hazard presented from COVID19. The information gathered from employer reports is also used by the agency to form the basis of statistical data on the causes and remediation of work-related COVID19 fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations.
In order to address the unique circumstances presented by COVID19, and to facilitate OSHA investigation and
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better workplace health surveillance, paragraph r1 requires covered employers to report each work-related COVID19 fatality to OSHA within 8
hours of the employer learning about the fatality, and each work-related COVID19 in-patient hospitalization to OSHA within 24 hours of the employer learning about the in-patient hospitalization. As discussed in more detail in the following discussion, OSHA is adding these additional COVID19 reporting requirements because of the delay in the manifestation and progression of symptoms of COVID19 can lead to hospitalization or fatality outside the normal window for reporting those workplace events.
Paragraph r1i provides that employers must report each workrelated COVID19 fatality to OSHA
within 8 hours of the employer learning about the fatality. Under this paragraph, an employer must make a report to OSHA within 8 hours of learning both 1 that an employee has died from a confirmed case of COVID19, and 2
that the cause of death was the result of a work-related exposure to COVID19.
Employers are only required to report confirmed case of COVID19 as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC CDC, May 20, 2020.
Typically, the cause of death is determined by the physician who was responsible for a patient who died in a hospital, although the cause of death can also be determined by others such as medical examiners or coroners Pappas, May 19, 2020.
The requirement in paragraph r1i is similar to the fatality reporting requirement in OSHAs regulation at 29
CFR 1904.39a1, which requires an employer to report to OSHA within 8
hours after the death of any employee as the result of a work-related incident.
However, 29 CFR 1904.39b6 requires employers to report a work-related fatality to OSHA only if the fatality occurs within 30 days of the workrelated incident. Prior to this ETS, for purposes of reporting events involving COVID19, OSHA interpreted the phrase the work-related incident to mean exposure in the work environment. Therefore, in order to be reportable under 29 CFR 1904.39a1, a work-related fatality due to COVID19
needed to have occurred within 30 days of an employees exposure in the work environment. Given the possibility of long-term illness before death, the 30day limitation for reporting fatalities to OSHA could restrict OSHAs ability to receive information about work-related COVID19 fatalities.

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To address these issues, OSHA has chosen not to apply the 30-day limitation period from 29 CFR
1904.39b6 to the reporting provision in paragraph r see paragraph r2.
Therefore, the requirement to report these fatalities is not limited by the length of time between workplace exposure and death. The reporting of work-related COVID19 fatalities that occur beyond 30 days from the time of exposure will enable the agency to evaluate more work-related COVID19
fatalities to determine whether immediate investigations are needed to prevent other employees at the same worksite from being exposed to the virus. Unlike entries in the employers COVID19 log, which would typically only be viewed by OSHA if an investigation occurs, the report of these fatalities to OSHA facilitates the agencys timely tracking of this data.
Accordingly, paragraph r1i requires employers to report each work-related COVID19 fatality to OSHA within 8
hours of the employer learning about the fatality regardless of when the exposure in the work environment occurred.
Paragraph r1ii of the standard requires an employer to report each work-related COVID19 in-patient hospitalization to OSHA within 24
hours of the employer learning about the in-patient hospitalization. Under this paragraph, and similar to OSHAs reporting regulation at 29 CFR 1904.39, an employer must make a report to OSHA within 24 hours of learning that 1 an employee has been in-patient hospitalized due to a confirmed case of COVID19, and 2 the reason for the hospitalization was the result of a workrelated exposure to the illness.
OSHAs current reporting regulation at 29 CFR 1904.39a2 provides that, within 24 hours after the in-patient hospitalization of one or more employees, as the result of a workrelated incident, an employer must report the in-patient hospitalization to OSHA. 29 CFR 1904.39b6 requires employers to only report in-patient hospitalizations to OSHA if the hospitalization occurs within 24 hours of the work-related incident. For example, if an employee trips in the workplace and sustains an injury on Monday, but is not hospitalized until Thursday, the employer does not need to report the event. In this example, the work-related incident occurred on Monday when the employee tripped and was injured in the workplace. Also, under 1904.39, employers must report in-patient hospitalizations to OSHA
within 24 hours of knowing both that the employee has been in-patient
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