How to re-open sports venues (1)
Reopening in a world of COVID 19
As the Government puts together its plans to start easing lockdown restrictions, sport stadiums are faced with the prospect of balancing financial and public demand against the need to ensure public health and safety as they start to make plans to reopen.
Having already helped a number of stadiums with the planning and implementation of their re-opening, over the next few days, Rockvolt will be sharing three posts that breakdown and explain one of the key processes involved, namely the establishment of a cleaning regime that creates a Bio Secure Zone (a controlled “virus free” area).
A changing landscape
Our recommendations are based on a ‘behind closed doors’ opening approach and are relevant for sports facilities and stadiums. Our advice has been sourced from UK Government, PHE and WHO information and is current as per the date of publishing. However, please note this advice could be subject to frequent and sudden change and our recommendations may therefore also change accordingly. Please contact us for the most recent advice.
Understanding how COVID-19 spreads
In approaching any re-opening exercise in a COVID 19 era, it is important to understand how the virus is spread. When someone who has COVID-19 coughs or exhales they release droplets of infected fluid. Most of these droplets fall on nearby surfaces and objects and other people can catch COVID-19 by touching these contaminated surfaces and then touching their eyes, nose or mouth. People can then spread the virus by touching other items with virus carrying hands. Also, if they are standing in close proximity to a person with COVID-19 they can catch it by breathing in droplets coughed out or exhaled by them. This understanding should underscore all cleaning regimes.
The recommendations
We’ve designed the following recommendations around an A, B, C, D, E style approach, namely:
Assess
Blueprint
Clean
Disinfect
Evaluate Continually
A. Assess
Safety is paramount
The impact of COVID-19 upon the sport industry has fundamentally changed things in the short and long term. Barring vaccine developments, the process of opening up venues will need to have a new set of restrictions and practices to ensure the safety of all staff and participants.
Operations must therefore assess the fundamental issue of being virus safe. In addition, operations must not have any detrimental impact on the wider front line work being undertaken in the fight against the virus. Procurement of resources and equipment must be sensitive to this requirement.
The aim must be to ensure that staff and participants’ welfare is protected to the fullest and they must be comfortable with these actions, so enabling them to undertake their jobs without fear or mistrust.
Bio Secure Zones
The overall aim is to create a Bio Secure venue which only approved personnel may enter and which is both virus free and designed to minimise the risk of infection. A variety of measures need to be in place to ensure this, namely:
Pre-arrival testing for people
Temperature testing
Regular and appropriate cleaning and disinfection
Reduction of cross contamination
Social distancing
Use of PPE
The basis for the reopening must be to manage ‘dirty’ areas outside of the venue’s control alongside maintaining Bio Secure Green Zones that are within its control. In doing so an Amber Zone will be created that will be the final ‘dirty’ area prior to entry, with a Red Zone defining areas fully outside of the control of the venue. The Amber Zone covers areas where some control is possible, such as car parks, entrances, access routes, security buildings. It is difficult to create a completely Bio Secure Green Zone but by implementing a proper regime the risk can be appropriately managed.
The operational programme must seek to maintain a clear line between what comes into the venue and how that is controlled. This principle applies to people, equipment, and consumables. The understanding of how to control what comes in to and what happens within the ‘clean’ area is paramount to success. The common approach is to assume that surfaces could be contaminated for up to 72 hours before the virus life passes. The cleaning regime must be appropriate to combat this.
Testing
It is recommended that all personnel working on site be tested at home 48 hours prior to the re-opening and tests sent to a lab. This process is dependent on it being undertaken privately by the venue and in accordance with the Government testing regime.
In addition, all staff are to self-isolate and to monitor temperature over that time. It is suggested that when staff arrive onsite, they are approved entry following:
presentation of self-declaration paperwork
proof of test results
an on the day temperature test
B. Blueprint
A cleaning blueprint or operational plan must be clearly defined and agreed. Important considerations within the blueprint include:
Define ‘Open’ Areas
Identify the areas of the venue to be ‘Open’. For a partial opening all areas that are to be open should be listed and the routes of travel to those areas documented. This includes how people journey into the venue, move within it and where they are based. These areas then need to be defined as Green or Amber.
Pre-Opening Timeline
The days before the opening date must be analysed taking into account suppliers, contractors, and staff operations required to ready the venue. These operational actions need to be time lined backwards from the Go Live date to gain an understanding of who will be on site and when.
Time needs to be allocated within this period to undertake the deep cleaning programme which we’ll discuss in our next post. There must also be a defined point in time when the Bio Secure Green Zone is in place and any works after this point will be within a ‘clean’ environment and will need to incorporate the access process accordingly.
Accreditation
A behind-closed doors opening should only be available to accredited persons. This will ensure that all staff, contractors, players and official visitors are accounted for and the venue has access to their contact details. All names and contact details of any non-site based attendees to the venue should be retained for at least one month for virus tracking purposes if necessary.
Access and Deliveries
The entrance points to the ‘clean’ venue must be controlled and minimised to as few points as possible. This includes people access and also delivery access. The following facilities at entrances must be in place:
Ability for people to clean their hands either with soap and water or sanitising hand rub.
Display posters promoting handwashing and sanitising.
Items to be brought on to site should be allowed to ‘sit’ for three days prior to being used (to become virus free). A bonded area of goods-in in the Amber Zone should control the access and internal distribution.
Deliveries of hard surface items that are required immediately must involve a wipe down disinfectant process.
Where movement is required from dirty to clean and back again, for example waste, then a disinfection process must be agreed, with hand cleaning and spraying of equipment, vehicles. This must occur prior to entering the Green Zone.
In all activity, social distancing and PPE will be used, compliant with current Government and medical guidelines.
Wayfinding
The routes through the venue should be clearly signposted and severely limited, so the actual routes are fully defined and exact knowledge of where people have been and can go is controlled. Only designated facilities and routes must be used.
Hand sanitiser stations should be located at all public and staff areas such as access points, receptions, sign-in points, ground floor lift lobbies and common areas. Signage regarding personal hygiene should be placed in these areas.
Quarantine Room
A room must be designated for those who show signs of COVID-19, so that they can be quickly isolated. The room may or may not be a current First Aid Room and should be operated in accordance with very strict parameters.
Self-Contained Teams
Cleaning should be done in small groups of no more than 4 operatives so that if one operative has to self-isolate (and therefore their colleagues also need to isolate) the entire cleaning team isn’t lost from site.
These small cleaning teams must be self-contained and operate together observing social distancing and correct use of PPE. The self-contained teams must not mix with other teams or other operational staff. Consideration as to sign in and equipment storage must be made to maximise the self-contained nature of the teams. Detailed scheduling will be needed as to areas to be cleaned and the approximate timings.
Contact us
With your assessment and blueprint complete, separate and comprehensive cleaning and disinfecting must be planned and carried out in advance of re-opening, and we’ll cover this in tomorrow’s post.
If you’d like more information about stadium re-opening measures or anything discussed in this post, please contact us.