JWA’s Countermeasures against New Coronavirus Infections
in association with JWA’s mission to support the lives of people
7 July, 2020
As the support of water infrastructure is the key objective of Japan Water Agency, we have been working on various measures necessary to secure safe water supply, and avoid new coronavirus infections at respective regional offices with the New Coronavirus Infection Measures Head Quarters there.
We will be continuously aware of the importance of our responsibility and our business continuity and will take whatever actions we will need to take to prevent the spread of infections in any of our offices and facilities to support people’s lives and secure the stable and continuous water supply.
The following are the summary of the programs we are practicing now:
1.Thorough review of our working environment with the proactive measures among staffers to prevent the infections.
- All facility areas now consist of plural groups, which can take turns to secure staffers on the scene and stay away from possible infected persons, averting close contact with them.
- Prevention of possible infections during office hours and commuting (Staggered working hours to avoid congested commuting, practice of working at home, restricted meetings that require business trips)
- Thorough check-ups of health conditions (All members need to conduct self-health check-up and stop coming to the office in case health condition is suspicious.)
- Prevention of respiratory droplets and contact infections (Requirement of facial masks for all members, thorough handwashing and gargling)
- Prevention of close contact-avoidance of confinement, dense meeting, and close contact (Converting conference rooms to the desk spaces, cut down to limited number of meetings and limited number of attendees, spotted table setting for enough social distancing)
2. Requesting self-restraint on the visits to dams and canals
In addition to our request for the self-restraint on the use of our dam and canal facilities to avoid gatherings, we conducted the following measures at our regional facilities:
- Temporary closure of our learning facilities and exhibit halls for unspecified number of visitors
- Cancellation/postponement of events held by JWA
- Stopping the use of open space such as parking lots and elevators which were open to the unspecified number of users
- Stopping supply of dam cards
3. Appropriate measures including temporary suspension of works and operations
- Appropriate measures for on-going contracted works and operations, including temporary suspension of them upon contractors’ request for suspension, and extension of work period, modifications on design document, etc.
- Flexible treatment (extension and others) of deadlines against applications for our bids and related works, etc.
- Maximizing the number of on-line inspections and meetings
- Simplification and prompt processing of various procedures especially for payments ( to help avoid the delayed payment to the contractors who are facing impending payment deadlines related to the temporary suspension of the works we contracted).
- Appropriate evaluations given to the contractors who have taken flexible and proper actions for the prevention of the spread of new coronavirus infections
4. Additional proactive measures taken at our offices
Hitokura Dam Operation and Maintenance Office
Set-up of partitions between the desk spaces to block the spread of droplets
Kusaki Dam Operation and Maintenance Office
Meeting space for contractors prepared at the entrance hall not to invite them into office area
Lake Biwa Development Integrated Operation and Development Office
Designated in-boxes are prepared on the table for easy document pick-up. In addition, company cars are allocated for use by fixed teams to minimize inter-changeable usage.
Gunma Canal Operation and Maintenance Office
Flower arrangement to brighten the atmosphere of the office (The flowers were grown locally.)
Proactively utilize Twitter and Facebook accounts
Hand hygiene campaign-Promotion of new coronavirus infections prevention
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