Association des pensionnés de l'Office européen des brevets

Coronavirus update

08.03.2020

Further preventative measures

Dear Colleagues,

Our Office will now take a series of further preventative measures to protect our staff and their families from Coronavirus, following the recent positive test of two pupils at the European School Munich (ESM):

• All staff members who have a child currently studying at the ESM, or who are living in the same household as a child currently studying at the ESM, must work from home for 14 days as of Monday 9 March. If this applies to you, please come into the Office on Monday 9 March to collect any equipment or material that you already have that you need to work at home (laptop, hard token, etc). Please avoid contact with other colleagues and make your visit as brief as possible.

• • Creches at all sites will remain open. However, any child with siblings at the ESM should not attend the creche until the 14-day period above has expired.

• • The list of high-risk areas has been updated to the following: China, South Korea, Iran, the Northern Italian regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna and province of Bolzano (in South Tirol, Italy) and the German Landkreis Heinsberg in Nord Rhein Westfalen. If you have returned from any country or area designated as high risk within the last 14 days, you should not come into the Office. You will need to work from home for a period of 14 days from the date of your return from the high-risk area.

• • All Munich staff who are currently equipped to work at home (for Part Time Home Working), and who are not subject to any restrictions for entering the Office, may choose to work either from home or the Office until further notice. Please inform your line manager if you choose to work from home.

• • Staff should not travel between EPO sites within Munich (e.g. from PH to Isar) until further notice. Please replace all face-to-face meetings with Skype or Vico where possible. To comply with our legal obligations, these restrictions do not apply to oral proceedings, where separate guidance is available.

• • The cafeterias and canteens at our Munich sites will be closed until further notice and will operate only to supply food to the creche.

• • In Munich, sports classes are cancelled, the gyms will remain closed and the meetings of Amicale should not take place until further notice.

• • Any staff currently in regions subject to governmental travel restrictions, such as Italy, should contact their line manager and Health and Safety.

We are aware that not all staff are currently equipped to work from home. However, our colleagues in HR and BIT are working hard to find solutions and will be in touch with those who don’t have the equipment to work from home to ensure they get the necessary equipment as soon as possible. Furthermore the Office is also preparing guidelines that will assist staff in working from home and is exploring other support measures, such as the printing and delivery of files in these exceptional circumstances.

These measures are subject to further change and we will keep you informed.

Thank you for your support in helping to implement these additional precautions. We wish the children affected a very swift recovery.

Kind regards,

António Campinos