Multiple layers of controls are recommended, including measures such as remote work and flextime, personal protective equipment (PPE) and face coverings, social distancing, and enhanced cleaning programs.

Employees may request reasonable accommodations, absent an undue hardship, if they are unable to comply with safety requirements due to a disability.

[1] There is low quality evidence that supports making improvements or modifications to personal protective equipment in order to help decrease contamination.

[2] In the United States, under the General Duty Clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthy workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm, which includes COVID-19.

The regulations includes mandates about control measures and prohibits retaliation against workers for expressing concern about infection risk, and provides for fines of up to US$130,000 for companies found in violation.

[12] Identifying industries or particular jobs that have the highest potential exposure to a specific risk can help in the development of interventions to control or prevent the spread of diseases such as COVID-19.

Prompt identification and isolation of potentially infectious individuals is a critical step in protecting workers, customers, visitors, and others at a worksite.

When there is minimal to moderate community transmission, social distancing strategies can be implemented such as canceling field trips, assemblies, and other large gatherings such as physical education or choir classes or meals in a cafeteria, increasing the space between desks, staggering arrival and dismissal times, limiting nonessential visitors, and using a separate health office location for children with flu-like symptoms.

[20] For law enforcement personnel performing daily routine activities, the immediate health risk is considered low by CDC.

Law enforcement officials who must make contact with individuals confirmed or suspected to have COVID-19 are recommended to follow the same guidelines as emergency medical technicians, including proper personal protective equipment.

High exposure risk jobs include healthcare delivery, support, laboratory, and medical transport workers who are exposed to known or suspected COVID-19 patients.

[9]: 13, 23–24  The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that incoming patients be separated into distinct waiting areas depending on whether they are a suspected COVID-19 case.

[22] In addition to other PPE, OSHA recommends respirators for those who work within 6 feet of patients known to be, or suspected of being, infected with SARS-CoV-2, and those performing aerosol-generating procedures.

In the United States, NIOSH-approved N95 filtering facepiece respirators or better must be used in the context of a comprehensive, written respiratory protection program that includes fit-testing, training, and medical exams.

For those who are collecting respiratory specimens from, caring for, or transporting COVID-19 patients without any aerosol-generating procedures, WHO recommends a surgical mask, goggles, or face shield, gown, and gloves.

The new policies are thought, according to the New York Times, based on various citations to medical literature, to increase mortality among vulnerable patients, especially those with cancer.

In 2007, the CDC HICPAC published a set of guidelines, called the 2007 Guideline for Isolation Precautions: Preventing Transmission of Infectious Agents in Healthcare Settings, suggesting that use of "barrier precautions", defined as "masks, gowns, [and] gloves", would not be required, so long as it was limited to "routine entry", patients were not confirmed to be infected, and no aerosol-generating procedures were being done.

"Standard precautions" requiring the use of masks, face shields, and/or eye protection, would be needed if there was potential for the spraying of bodily fluids, like during intubation.