COVID-19 Community Levels and Masking Requirements by Location

The Department of Labor's COVID-19 health and safety protocols can be found in the DOL COVID-19 Workplace Safety Plan. DOL's masking requirements are aligned with guidance from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force and tied to the three COVID-19 Community Levels of risk (low, medium, and high) established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC determines COVID-19 community levels by measuring the impact of COVID-19 illness on health and healthcare systems.

All Federal employees, onsite contractors, and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, must wear a high-quality mask inside of Federal buildings in areas where the COVID-19 community level is high, or where required by local mask mandates, as further explained below. In areas deemed as low or medium COVID-19 community levels, masking will not be required regardless of vaccination status.

DOL employees, contractors, and visitors may choose to wear a mask regardless of community level. Additionally, the CDC recommends that individuals wear high-quality masks regardless of COVID-19 community level if they have symptoms of COVID-19 for 10 days after being diagnosed with COVID-19, and for 10 days after being exposed to COVID-19.* Additional guidance on wearing masks and other measures to protect yourself can be found on the CDC's website.

Check your Community Level

The Department of Labor will monitor COVID-19 community levels on a weekly basis and use the below tool to provide employees, contractors, and visitors with the current mask requirements for facilities where DOL offices are located.

Use the search feature to locate your DOL facility. You can search by typing a portion of your facility's address, city, state, and/or county.

Please be aware of the following

• DOL will also follow local mask mandates for the jurisdictions where its facilities are located, when that locality imposes more protective pandemic-related safety requirements. Therefore, if a Federal facility is located in a city, county, or state with a local mask mandate, then masks will generally be required for all employees, contractors, and visitors in that facility regardless of the COVID-19 Community Level.
• If the masking status below reads as "Local Mask Requirements in Effect" that means that locality has a more nuanced mask mandate that depends on vaccination status or is only applicable in specific settings that may apply to some federal facilities. In those cases, employees, contractors and visitors will be expected to follow the specific masking rules as described in that local mandate.

Please contact COVID19Questions@dol.gov with any questions.

*Please note that all employees share in the responsibility for limiting the spread of COVID-19. One of the best ways to limit the transmission of the virus is to stay home if you are sick. If Federal employees, onsite contractor employees, or visitors are feeling ill, they should not enter the Federal workplace.