Steps City employees are taking to reduce the likelihood of spreading or contracting the flu
The City of Minneapolis is committed to providing essential services to our residents, businesses and visitors. To ensure the City can continue providing basic municipal services, City employees are taking steps to ensure their offices are healthy environments for visitors and employees.
If you visit a City office, you should know that employees have been asked to:
- Wash their hands frequently with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
- Wipe down shared work surfaces.
- Cover their nose and mouth with a tissue when they cough or sneeze. Or, cough into your sleeve.
- Avoid close contact with sick people, when feasible.
- Offer a surgical mask to a visitor who is coughing or sneezing within 3 to 6 feet of employees or other customers. Wearing a surgical mask may protect other people in the area from possible illness exposure.
- If the person who appears ill refuses to wear a mask, the employee has been asked to put on a surgical mask while assisting the visitor.
- Place tissues or hand sanitizing solution on reception counters for visitors to use.
If you need emergency medical assistance, you should know that first responders may:
- Put on a surgical facemask, disposable gloves or, possibly, a respirator and gown, to protect themselves against airborne and/or droplet virus transmission.
The City of Minneapolis recognizes that its police officers, firefighters and first-responders perform jobs that bring them in close physical proximity to infectious individuals. In order to ensure that first-responders are healthy and available to provide the public with emergency assistance, they have been asked to take these precautions. That’s also why many first-responders have received both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 flu vaccination.
Last updated Sep. 27, 2011