The United States Postal Service is proud of the part their employees play in processing, transporting, and delivering mail and packages for the American public. They provide a vital public service that is a part of this nation’s critical infrastructure. The Postal Service has a dedicated Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Command Response leadership team that is focusing on employee and customer safety in conjunction with operational and business continuity during this unprecedented epidemic. They continue to follow the strategies and measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and public health departments. 

  To reduce health risks for their employees and customers and to safeguard their operational and business continuity, the Postal Service is doing the following:

•Ensuring millions of masks, gloves and cleaning and sanitizing products are available and distributed to more than 30,000 locations every day through their Postal Service supply chain. They also have opened up local purchasing authorities and sourcing options so that their employees can access additional supplies within the communities they serve. They have expanded their national sourcing of supplies and services to ensure that increasing demands are met.

•Reinforcing workplace behaviors to ensure that contact among their employees and with their customers reflects the best guidance regarding healthy interactions, social distancing, and risk minimization. They have implemented measures at retail facilities and mail processing facilities to ensure appropriate social distancing, including through signage, floor tape, and ‘cough/ sneeze’ barriers. They have changed delivery procedures to eliminate the requirement that customers sign their Mobile Delivery Devices for delivery. For increased safety, employees will politely ask the customer to step back a safe distance or close the screen door/door so that they may leave the item in the mail receptacle or appropriate location by the customer’s door.

•Updated their cleaning policies to ensure that all cleaning occurs in a manner consistent with CDC guidance relating to this pandemic.

•Updated their leave policies to allow liberal use of leave and to therefore give their employees the ability to stay home whenever they feel sick, must provide dependent care, or any other qualifying factor under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

•Expanded the use of telework for those employees who are able to perform their jobs remotely.  

•Issuing a daily cadence of employee talks, articles, videos, and other communications to ensure employees have the latest information and guidance.

•Leveraging localized continuity of operations plans that can be employed in the case of emergencies to help ensure that the nation’s postal system continues to function for the American people.

  The Postal Service delivers much needed medications and Social Security checks, and they are the leading delivery service for online purchases. The Postal Service is an essential service for purposes of compliance with state or municipality shelter-in-place orders or other social distancing restrictions. Importantly, the CDC, the World Health Organization, as well as the Surgeon General have indicated that there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through the mail.

  According to the World Health Organization, “the likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, travelled, and been exposed to different conditions and temperature is also low.” And according to the CDC, “in general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.” 

  Currently there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with imported goods and there have not been any cases of COVID-19 in the United States associated with imported goods.

  For more information, visit www.usps.com.