Keeping alive enterprises while embracing unprecedented COVID-19 restrictions.

COVID-19 is rapidly expanding globally, with more than 1,800,000 cases and 105,000 deaths to date (April 11, 2020) (www.worldometers.info). The WHO upgrade to pandemic, the emergency declaration in the United States, and the nationwide quarantines implemented in most European countries will last for over the announced 4 weeks. In addition to major health consequences, the coronavirus crisis is expected to harm most economies very deeply.

In an attempt to minimize the economic impact of massive confinement of people and closing of establishments for several weeks, enterprises that can provide a certain amount of services online should try to keep their activities going as much as possible. We want to share our experience at UNIR (La Universidad Internacional de La Rioja), the largest online university in Spanish worldwide,[1] with multiple facilities in Spain and Latin America, and roughly 47,000 students.

During the second week of March, contention measures such as the closure of schools and banning of mass events were implemented in Madrid, Spain. These actions aimed at reducing the overburdening of hospitals due to the rapid escalation of cases in need of beds and intensive care. Current trends suggest that the epidemic in Spain is following the Italian pattern, doubling every 3 days, with a deferral of roughly 10 days.[2]

From the first week of March, a crisis committee was nominated at UNIR that conveyed on a daily basis to update news and adapt strategies. In an attempt to minimize the chances of viral exposure and disease risk severity, all employees working at the distinct facilities were contacted, and those belonging to the three groups listed in Table 1 were invited to depart for home immediately.

Table 1.

Employees sent home immediately.

• Belonging to risk groups for COVID-19 disease severity:

➢ Age older than 65 years; chronic illness (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, pregnancy, etc.), obesity, immunosuppresive therapies, congenital or acquired immunodeficiencies, cancer, etc.

• Close contact with someone recently diagnosed with, or with clinical suspicion of, COVID-19.

• Current symptoms/signs of COVID-19.

➢ Fever, cough, headache, fatigue, dyspnea, etc.

The remaining employees were stratified into four categories (Table 2) and advised to act accordingly. Personnel performing critical tasks considered to require their physical presence at headquarters were split into three groups. First, a few were considered indispensable managers. Second, a subset of people able to come upon request for specific tasks. Third, people that would perform a regular job in a rotating manner. All remaining employees were sent home, from where they continued their duties.

Table 2.

Stratification of healthy employees for keeping business active.

I. Indispensable. A substitute should be nominated.

II. On demand.

III. Rotating. Keep in place just one person for each group performing the same task.

IV. At home. Telejob

Laptops and internet connections were facilitated to all those in need for working from home. All employees were provided with direct 24 h contact (phone, WhatsApp, and e-mail) with the UNIR Medical Center staff. They could ask medical questions, and access advice or psychological support at anytime. At our largest university facilities in Logroño and Madrid, in less than 2 days, personnel coming to headquarters went down from roughly 500 at each site to <5.

To date, 4 weeks later, classes and exams are operating at full capacity, acknowledging just occasional troubles, due mostly to overloaded external online system platforms. Overall, all expected levels of service and support for students are being maintained. In contrast, outdoors, nationwide lockdown is being implemented rigorously, and the Spanish health system is critically overwhelmed. Hopefully, the incidence of COVID-19 cases has plateau and begin to decline as the proportion of people susceptible to the new SARS-CoV-2 infection goes down, as increasing numbers of people has been infected and the majority has been recovered with protective immunity.

We want to share with others our business approach for keeping job duties alive as much as possible and for shortening periods of leave. Prolonged job disruptions would be disastrous. Furthermore, our stratification categories of employees might be useful for scaling up return to regular job duties once the COVID-19 pandemic decreases steadily in 2–3 months. Then, authorities will relax social distancing restriction measures, and a massive return to working places might result in an unwanted rebound of cases.