Reopening California Safely – New & Improved Security Measures

California’s governor and multiple cities and counties announced the limited reopening of California businesses across the state, an exciting and hopeful benchmark for business owners, employees, and consumers alike. Businesses that get the green light to open include book stores, clothing stores, sporting goods retailers, and others. Although anxious citizens are ready to go shopping again at their favorite retail stores and employees gear up to go back to work, we need to consider the health and safety hazards phase 2 reopening presents, and proactively mitigate the threat of a second wave of infections. 

The need for security personnel will grow in phase 2 of reopening California to protect shoppers, employees, and company brands during the initial stages of this next phase and throughout the post-COVID-19 era. Curbside pick up is not a new innovation in retail, however it will now be an essential part of safe operations for businesses that are ready to jumpstart their revenue and sales. If the majority of business operations are now occurring in front of the store, business owners need to reconsider security policies and how to mitigate potential hazards such as theft, robbery, and customer safety. The presence of security is a deterrent in and of itself to prevent crimes, and will be worth the investment for businesses planning to do any cash handling or high value transactions in front of their store. Trained security personnel will protect your assets, staff, and customers while adding emphasis on protecting the health of the employees by adding temperature screening, asking health related questions, or PPE checks/enforcement. 

Governor Newsom stated in his press conference on Monday that we “must not forget why we’re in this position in the first place”, and emphasized that “the virus has not gone away” yet. This is exactly why health screening is a new security function to consider when reintroducing daily operations and inviting customers back to your business. Security personnel are often the first person a customer will see when entering a business as part of their access control duties. Management and business owners should jump at the opportunity to let this first interaction be the first step in mitigating spread and exposure of COVID-19. By adapting this CDC screening tool to any business, security can ask screener questions or use non-contact thermometers to screen customers for COVID-19 symptoms or exposure. 

AEGIS is looking ahead of phase 2 to reopening California toward what business operations will look like after the pandemic. Everything that has occurred during this crisis and everything we have learned creates a foundation for response scenarios to any future outbreak. Should there be any infections in the future, the goal is to quickly identify and contain these cases before it spreads in the same fashion as it did these past few months. The main public health tool for control will be social distancing and contact tracing. A collaboration between Apple and Google is going to aid government and healthcare officials perform contact tracing on a large scale to prevent spread of the virus. This is an opt-in program with data being streamlined to governing agencies for epidemiological purposes. This means that private business owners will likely need to seek out contractors to do perform internal contact tracing services to proactively mitigate the spread of the virus within a singular company. 

Deploying all of these services quickly and efficiently, AEGIS is ready to hit the ground running when business owners open up their storefronts to protect the wellbeing of customers, employees, and the company. 

AEGIS Security & Investigations is a Los Angeles based California company serving Southern, Central, and Northern California. We are licensed and insured in the State of California to provide high-end armed and unarmed regular and temporary off-duty police officers, bodyguards, security officers, loss prevention agents, and security staff. Additionally, we offer services for private investigation, consultation, people tracing, and background investigations. Our trainings and workshops in the field of security licensure and workplace violence prevention / active shooter preparedness and response have been featured in news media and are renowned for their efficacy. For more information or to contact us, visit www.aegis.com.