AIHA and eight other leading scientific organizations have endorsed recommendations for Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and other federal agencies to create specific guidelines for workers and communities related to the aerosol transmission of the virus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19.

The recommendations respond to the federal agencies' delay in acknowledging the capability for the SARS-CoV-2 virus to infect people via the inhalation of virus-laden aerosols—that is, small airborne droplets—and issue appropriate guidance. As of October 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the CDC had yet to alter protection guidelines for workers and communities to address SARS-CoV-2 aerosol transmission.