Understanding Compliance with OSHA’s Respiratory 

Protection Standard During the Coronavirus Disease 

2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an 

unprecedented impact on the availability of respirators and fit-testing 

supplies. This document is intended to help employers understand and 

comply with OSHA’s temporary enforcement guidance for the 

Respiratory Protection standard (29 CFR § 1910.134).

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a public health 

emergency that has dramatically increased demand for 

respirators, particularly N-95 filtering facepiece 

respirators (FFRs), as well as fit-testing supplies 

ordinarily used to ensure that respirators fit workers 

properly and provide the expected level of protection. 

Shortages (either intermittent or extended) of both 

FFRs and fit-testing supplies have posed tremendous 

challenges. In order to allow essential operations to 

continue, many employers have had to utilize 

contingency and crisis strategies that are ordinarily not 

compliant with OSHA’s Respiratory Protection standard. 

Examples of contingency and crisis strategies include: 

extended use of disposable FFRs, decontamination and 

reuse of disposable FFRs, and the use of foreign FFRs 

not approved by the National Institute for Occupational 

Safety and Health (NIOSH). 

It is important for employers to understand that 

deviations from normal respirator use come with 

increased risk for workers that, in certain 

circumstances, may only be allowable during this public 

health emergency because the alternative of no 

respiratory protection presents a greater danger to 

workers. In order to ensure adequate protection for 

workers during the use of contingency and crisis 

strategies, OSHA has issued temporary enforcement 

guidance to its Compliance Safety and Health Officers 

(CSHOs). This guidance allows CSHOs to exercise 

enforcement discretion in cases involving workplace 

exposures and an employer that is unable to comply 

with certain provisions of the Respiratory Protection 

standard because of supply shortages and has thus 

found it necessary to implement contingency or crisis 

strategies for respirator use by workers. 

Understanding OSHA’s Temporary 

Enforcement Guidance

In response to FFR and fit-testing supply shortages during 

the COVID-19 pandemic, OSHA has issued several 

temporary enforcement guidance memoranda allowing 

CSHOs to exercise enforcement discretion when 

Photo: CDC/NIOSH
considering issuing citations under the Respiratory 

Protection standard and/or the equivalent respiratory 

protection provisions of other health standards. 

CSHO enforcement discretion is applied only when 

circumstances beyond the employer’s control prevent 

compliance with certain parts of the Respiratory 

Protection standard and the employer makes objectively 

reasonable efforts to obtain and conserve supplies. 

Employers are also expected to explore options and 

modify practices to assure the best available protection 

for workers (e.g., avoid the use of non-compliant 

respiratory protection when performing high hazard 

aerosol-generating procedures). Employers are expected 

to come into full compliance with the Respiratory 

Protection standard once supply chain issues are 

resolved (e.g., conduct fit-testing once fit-testing supplies 

become available). OSHA will revoke all of the temporary 

enforcement discretions and revert to the normal 

enforcement of the Respiratory Protection standard 

once the Agency determines that the additional 

enforcement discretion is no longer necessary. 

Employers Seeking Relief Under Temporary 

Enforcement Guidance

It is important for employers to understand that these 

temporary enforcement guidance memoranda do not 

offer blanket waivers or exemptions for complying 

with any OSHA standards or provisions of such 

standards, including the Respiratory Protection 

standard (e.g., annual fit-testing requirements). 

Rather, they allow for enforcement discretion by CSHOs 

during the COVID-19 pandemic period only in 

circumstances where an employer can demonstrate 

that it made unsuccessful but objectively reasonable 

efforts to obtain and conserve supplies of FFRs and fittesting supplies as outlined in the memoranda.

Employers should understand that non-compliance still 

violates the standard. However, these temporary 

enforcement guidance memos provide CSHOs 

discretion, on a case-by-case basis during the COVID-19 

pandemic period only, to refrain from issuing citations 

to employers for violating certain provisions of the 

Respiratory Protection standard and/or the equivalent 

respiratory protection provisions of other health 

standards, where compliance with these provisions is

affected by supply shortages. Each temporary 

enforcement guidance memorandum has specific 

criteria that CSHOs will assess during an inspection. For 

example, CSHOs will look for and consider 

documentation and other available information 

showing that the employer:

• Utilized strategies to prioritize and conserve the use 

of N95s according to CDC guidance:

o Considerations for Release of Stockpiled N95s 

Beyond the Manufacturer-Designated Shelf Life

o Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of N95 

Respirators;

• Maintained a fully compliant Respiratory Protection 

Program (RPP) in all other regards (i.e., a written 

program that covers, among other required 

elements, procedures for medical evaluation of 

employees, respirator maintenance and care, 

employee training);

• Reassessed their engineering and administrative 

controls, and work practices, and identified and 

implemented changes to decrease the need for N95s 

without exposing employees to additional hazards 

(e.g., considering whether it is possible to 

temporarily suspend certain procedures, such as 

high hazard elective medical procedures, or to 

increase the use of other feasible protections, such 

as moving operations outdoors, using job rotation 

schedules, or improving the use of wet methods or 

portable local exhaust systems when performing 

dust-generating tasks);

• Monitored respirator supplies and made objectively 

reasonable efforts to obtain NIOSH-approved 

respirators; and, in healthcare settings, prioritized 

the best respiratory protection options available 

for use during high hazard aerosol-generating 

medical procedures;

• Explored options to obtain and use other types of 

respirators (e.g., P-100s, non-disposable, elastomeric 

respirators, and powered air-purifying respirators 

(PAPRs), as well as foreign respirators that are not 

NIOSH-approved) that offer equivalent or higher 

protection when N-95s were not available; and

• Monitored fit-testing supplies and made objectively 

reasonable efforts to obtain fit-testing supplies.

If employers can demonstrate objectively reasonable 

efforts to comply with the Respiratory Protection 

standard, and/or the equivalent respiratory protection 

provisions of other health standards, then OSHA may 

exercise enforcement discretion in accordance with the 

memoranda during the COVID-19 pandemic. 