Work safely
3. Emergency incidents at work
3.3. External emergencies
Other emergency incidents may occur outside of your workplace but will impact your response to WHS, such as:
- natural disasters, e.g. bushfires, floods, storms
- nearby fires, explosions, electrical outages
- shooting or bomb threats in the city
- pandemics e.g. COVID 19, influenza.
In these situations it will be important to follow the advice of your WHS representative, manager or designated personnel.
The COVID 19 pandemic, which began in 2020, caused a massive re-think of how to keep employees safe and well at work, from an infectious, airborne disease. Governments, unions and health authorities worked quickly to develop COVID safe working practices.
Note: ‘In a pandemic situation, your obligations are to comply with the public health advice, emergency measures and any relevant public health laws that have been introduced.’
For more information on what to do during a pandemic, read – Preparing for a pandemic, created by Worksafe Victoria.
Learning Activity 4
To complete this activity, read and respond to Activity 4 questions in your document Learning activity worksheet.
Bring this document with you to your next face-to-face class to discuss with your teacher and fellow students.
This completes the first topic, in the next topic we’ll look at implementing the work health and safety procedures.