The impact on business of coronavirus concerns is starting to be felt across multiple sectors and with no end in site, it could be profound. Airlines are reporting drops in passenger traffic by up to 50% projecting a lost of up to $113 billion. The University of Washington has gone to virtual learning until March 20 (and it could go longer). Chinese restaurants in the International District are down by half as well. But the West Seattle business community is responding. West Seattle Junction Association Executive Director applauded the efforts by local business to address the issue and said it was "business as usual" and asked everyone to support local business by continuing to shop and eat locally. There have been no cases of the virus found in the community to date.

The West Seattle Chamber of Commerce sent out a survey to the members and 32 businesses responded to questions regarding sanitation and employees. Here are their answers.

What are you doing to keep the physical facility safe and sanitary?

• Increased cleaning, providing hand sanitizer and clorox wipes for staff.

• Deep clean daily and also have a visible "cleaning station" set up so people see us grabbing supplies and continuing to clean throughout the day.

• We have Clorox wipes and alcohol based hand wipes in the office for keeping surfaces clean.

• Clorox wipes, Limit interactions. Plans to go to limited coverage if people get sick.

• Cleaning our exterior and interior door handles. And encouraging everyone in the building to wash their hands often

• Adding additional cleaning times and emphasis on touch points.

• Washing our hands a lot.

• Regular disinfectant cleaning

• Our normal sanitization procedures have been audited and we increased the times we sanitize surfaces that get touched by people hands--doors, light switches, POS counters. Have posted handwashing infographics.

• Wiping down often touched surfaces regularly.

• Following up with employees regarding proper handwashing and sanitizing protocol. Instituting a 'scrub in-scrub out' standard for on-site work and a reminder to wash or sanitize after handling money or customer supplied product.

• Sanitizing hard surfaces daily. Keeping hand sanitizer available for clients.

• Sanitizing surfaces, washing hands, asking people who are ill to stay home

• Lysol wipes to wipe down door handles and counters

• wiping down doorknobs and similar regularly touched items periodically. keeping tissues available.

• Wiping down surfaces with clorox bleach wipes and using lysol to disinfect.

• We are a a dental office, so all rooms are thoroughly cleaned between patients, staff all wear personal protective equipment. We are make sure to more frequently clean waiting room and bathrooms and requesting patients with any illness to stay home.

• We have implemented a cleaning/sanitation protocol of sanitizing all surfaces three times per day. We have also asked staff to take a hand washing break every hour.

• Sanitizing all high touch areas multiple times a day. Monitoring all staff and residents for potential symptoms. Researched if any staff or residents had been in facilities where known cases have been identified. Screening visitors into the community. Reducing public gatherings. Educating staff and residents on healthy habits, increase hand wash frequency

What are you doing to address employees who are sick?

84% said they will tell them to just stay home. Some said they were letting people work from home if possible.

How will you handle time off (PTO) for your employees?

• Normal PTO applies unless our facilities would be shut down. Some accommodations for work from home are available.

• The office staff can work from home if needed. The field crews are Union members so their PTO comes from the Union.

• Sick time and vacation time if they are out of their sick time.

• Most of my employees have banked sick time, but we may utilize special one-time assistance for missed hours such as borrowing against future vacation or loans.

• We give generous PTO and will be even more flexible with authorizing if circumstances warrant.

• We are going to see how this goes. So far it hasn’t been too much out of the ordinary but we are not imposing penalties or requirements for shifts to be covered during this time. If they are sick, we ask them to please stay home and accommodate the best we can on our end.

Do you have wipes or hand sanitizer for the public to use?

93.7 % said they did.