Addendum to WI Phase II COVID-19 Guidelines

Density
We are maintaining 1 person per bay (2 persons per room), any higher density cannot
accommodate 6 feet distancing.

Hours
Effective Monday July 27, Whitehead will be open from 6:00 am to midnight.
Please note that between 9:00 pm and midnight cleaning staff will need to enter lab rooms while
lab staff are there in order to perform a deep cleaning.  We ask lab staff to cooperate with the
cleaning staff and step away for 10 minutes or so in order to allow for sweeping and mopping
of the floors, when requested.

Meetings
One-on-one—socially distanced and with masks—meetings in faculty offices are allowed.  For
those faculty and Whitehead Fellows whose offices are smaller, the faculty lounge and the first-
floor conference room will be made available for scheduled meetings.  One-on-one meetings are
voluntary and cannot be mandatory.


Working in Close Proximity
The procedure below should be followed if social distancing cannot be maintained. For example,
training new personnel on lab technique or experiments requiring two individuals working
closely for more than 10 minutes.
1) Evaluate the situation by considering whether or not the task is truly essential at this
time:
• Can the task be delayed?
• Can it be safely done in another way?
• Can the number of personnel involved be reduced?
 
2) If the task is considered essential and cannot be delayed, contact
EH&S ( safety@wi.mit.edu ) explaining the nature of the tasks and rooms involved.
EH&S will conduct a job safety analysis and will recommend appropriate additional
PPE. This is in addition to work practices in place such as decontaminating
tools/equipment/PPE at the beginning and end of each experiment by wiping down or
spraying down with appropriate disinfectant.
 
Note: If PPE is not available, these tasks should be postponed until PPE is available.
 
3) Personnel will be trained on how to properly don (put on), use, and doff (take off)
PPE; how to properly dispose or disinfect, inspect for damage, maintain PPE, and the
limitations of PPE.