Novel Corona Virus 2019 (causing COVID-19) is considered a Pandemic by World Health Organization. If left un-mitigated infection rates will see exponential growth, and the accumulated effects of this growth threaten to overwhelm health systems everywhere, with greatly increased mortality rates for severe cases of COVID19 as well as for a range of other diseases whose treatment will also be impacted. A pandemic of novel corona virus therefore requires extraordinary mitigating measures to delay the spread and maintain the outbreak at acceptable levels, within the capacity of health systems to respond.

Recognizing these measures imposed by governments and companies disrupts normal life and business everywhere we must also acknowledge wind power plants are critical infrastructure and must be maintained throughout the crisis.

Shifting to home working and virtual meetings is not an option for wind technicians, neither during normal workday nor while attending GWO training. During training, practical exercises are central to acquiring safety skills at the required level of learning. During audits, witnessing instructors delivering training is central to quality assurance and requires physical presence of the auditor.

Employers, auditors, training providers and course participants therefore may face a dilemma: Do we refresh/re-audit GWO safety training now to mitigate work related risks? Is it more responsible to postpone and mitigate virus related risks? Not one answer fits all and must be based on a local assessment.

In the face of the above, GWO now offers the following guidance to its stakeholders:

GWO strongly advise training providers to follow World Health Organisation guidelines for prevention in schools, workplaces and institutions, as well as to follow recommendations from national health authorities.

Further, during the delivery of GWO training, take reasonable precautions to deliver the learning objectives while observing precautionary measures to avoid spread. As a minimum, the following measures are recommended:

In all modules:

1. Update your safety instructions and emergency procedures: Every GWO Standard contains in lesson 1 a 15-minute lesson on “Safety Instructions & Emergency Procedures”. We strongly advise all training providers to adapt their introductory lessons to include reference to good hygiene, social distancing and other measures you introduce in accordance with the guidelines mentioned above.
2. Implement measures according to the guidelines mentioned above to mitigate ways virus may spread, including planning of exercises to allow social distancing, and prevent spread of virus from shared use of equipment. Introduce disinfection regimes between uses.
3. During practical exercises in any GWO module where course participants are used as an injured person (casualty), we recommend training providers to use a dummy as the injured person.
4. If infected (or displaying symptoms), instructors and course participants must refrain from attending training.

In specific modules:

1. During First Aid and Enhanced First Aid (including refresher) modules for when practicing CPR on a resuscitation mannequin. Training staff shall continue to demonstrate correct CPR, however course participants (delegates) shall not be required to perform mouth-to-mouth part on mannequin. However, delegates must still practice establishing an airway and verbally confirming delivery and correct number of rescue breaths (without contact between course participants mouth and the mannequin’s mouth), and otherwise complete the exercise as described.
2. During Working at Height initial and refresher training, all practical exercises can be performed using a rescue dummy as injured person (casualty), including the double evacuation and ladder rescues of a conscious person
3. During Advanced Rescue Training (Initial and Refresher), when performing practical rescue exercises where the course participants (delegates) are required to work in teams,  these exercises may be carried out as single rescuer, making sure to cover planning of rescue in teams and teams communication during rescue.

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NOTES:

1. WHO on Novel Coronavirus 2019 https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

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