Dear Shipper and Affiliate Partners:

COVID-19 has placed special demands on all of us in the supply chain. As your critical partners together with carriers and forwarders, CLDA wanted to let you know that our members are using the best practices to keep the supply chain responsive and safe. Here is some advice from our members to protect the supply chain and the health of those receiving deliveries:

Advice for carriers and forwarders:

• Establish visitor health screening forms at your gates that include health status and symptoms.
• Provide the option of no-contact delivery and confirmations
• Equip every delivery vehicle with supplies for drivers that include gloves and hand sanitizers

Advice to drivers:

• Start your delivery day by spraying the interior passenger space of the vehicle with a disinfectant following the product guidelines
• Avoid using driver lounges or accepting food or drink hospitality at stops
• Avoid shaking hands or personally contact anyone and stay six feet or more away from others whenever possible
• Ask about illness in the home or at the dock before scheduling a delivery and as you arrive. For those who confirm illness, request a call-back when the person has been symptom-free for two weeks
• Avoid delivering to any destination where you see a sick person inside. Return to your vehicle and call for a reschedule on the delivery.
• Use paper signatures and pictures only for the POD to avoid passing a hand-held device between yourself and the customer
• Avoid accepting a package for delivery from the shipping party’s hand.
• Ask the shipping party to place the package(s) on a surface from which you can physically pick up
• Deliver packages to the customer by leaving them on a desk or other surface instead of hand-to-hand contact
• Limit contact with all individuals by practicing social distancing while in the process of making a pickup or delivery by remaining at least six feet away
• Ask for the person’s name who just received the shipment or package and enter it yourself into your phone or hard copy manifest book
• Place any required Bill of Lading on a surface, allowing the consignee to sign in the appropriate places. When they are completed, request that they step away from the document, retrieve it and place it on the back of your clipboard
• Use hand sanitizers once back in the vehicle and before departing for the next stop
• Contact your dispatcher if you begin to feel sick immediately to make plans for others to complete your deliveries and then report to medical professionals
• Spray the interior passenger space of the vehicle with a disinfectant following the product guidelines at the end of the day.

In addition, we urge you to use caution in the words you use with customers and staff to avoid spreading undue concern about this virus. Here is a blog post from the CLDA Director of Public Relations, Andrea Obston, with some advice on how to phrase any messages you put out.

We encourage CLDA Members to offer their services to local EMS officials and local Departments of Public Health to assist them in their response. CLDA Government Affairs Director Michael Taylor is working with Prime Policy Group to send a letter of assistance to the state EMS officials that we will also share with membership. Further, Congress just passed the second of what will be three emergency spending packages to combat the spread of the virus.

Thank you for your continuing role as a critical part of the supply chain, especially at this challenging time. If anyone has questions please email them to info@clda.org and look for further updates on the app, our website and our social media.

Steve Howard

President
CLDA