Why pest controllers must be recognised as essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis
The outbreak of the new strain of human Coronavirus 2019-nCoV, also known as COVID-19, has changed our daily lives dramatically. As professional pest controllers, we are used to helping to protect people and businesses from pest issues. For humanity sake, we sincerely hope and pray that the virus can be contained as soon as possible, causing less misery and deaths across the world. Regardless of our situation at the moment, we must heed the advice of the UK Government, the NHS, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) and strictly follow all guidelines and best practices to reduce the risks of getting infected or spreading the virus.
Pest control operators (PCOs) must be recognised as essential workers in the UK amid the COVID-19 outbreak and other pandemic events, as they effectively control disease spreading pests, protecting and keeping us and our food source safe. PCOs are on the frontline nearly every day of the week, long preceding any outbreak, like many other core/essential workers that keep the society going, with a special call-out to the ones taking care of our sick, and all workers in our emergency departments, saving lives. To serve the customer and help society in getting rid of pests, pest technicians are constantly exposed to chemicals that take a toll on their health. They are constantly exposed to the disease spreading pests, risking their own health and wellbeing in order to protect public health.
How are we keeping the public and our technicians safe
In our company, we pay meticulous attention to the smallest detail, especially where it concerns health and safety. One of our top priorities as professionals is to eliminate or reduce all work-related risks, whilst continually working to improve pest control success rates and efficacy. We take extra precautions in terms of personal protective equipment (PPE), wearing our gear before we enter the property, maintaining social distancing of at least 2 meters, safely disposing of all used PPE when our tasks are completed. The technicians issue a detailed generic and specific risk assessment after each survey, before commencing any treatment, bearing in mind that they will be unable to work further in case of a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 case within 72 hours of their visit onsite. We constantly monitor the health and well-being of our technicians, ensuring that they keep abreast of the latest updates on the all social and environmental concerns and issues. We conduct regular training of our technicians to equip them with the know-how to educate and handle every customer and treatment with the utmost care and diligence.
Many thanks to every individual who are working hard everyday to contribute to our society and care for our community. We are also grateful to our association – the British Pest Control Association (BPCA), for supporting the industry and the nation’s professional pest controllers in many ways than one. We wish to recognise their special efforts for lobbying our Government’s recognition of pest management work as a critical industry amid this pandemic and global crisis.
Author:
Prime Pest Control