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Uber’s COVID safety plan

1November,2020 / Victoria
Featured image for Uber’s COVID safety plan

We’re continuing to help support your wellbeing as your city’s restrictions start to lift. Here are the latest safety standards and resources we’ve put in place to help keep everyone safe while using Uber and Uber Eats.

Contents:

Physical distancing

We’ve introduced certain safety standards to help ensure that there is adequate physical distance on trips and deliveries using the Uber apps:

  • Riders are required to sit in the backseat.
  • Uber Pool remains suspended.
  • All deliveries (excluding alcohol deliveries) must be left at the door to make the experience as contactless as possible. For alcohol deliveries, local law requires ID and sobriety checking before the delivery can be completed. For those deliveries, you should maintain a safe physical distance in accordance with Government guidance. 
  • Pre-trip checklists: Before requesting a ride or going online, riders and driver and delivery partners must confirm that they will take certain safety steps including practicing physical distancing.
  • Driver-partners can cancel a trip if they have a safety concern without it affecting their cancelation rate or Uber Pro status.
  • As always, all trips and deliveries are cashless.

Wearing a face mask

Safety standards to encourage riders, driver partner and delivery people to wear a face mask:

  • While face masks are no longer required, they are still recommended to help protect you and those around you
  • Driver-partners can cancel a trip if you have a safety concern without it affecting their cancellation rate or Uber Pro status.

Here are some tips on wearing a face mask:

  • PREPARE: Clean your hands before touching the mask, using an alcohol-based hand sanitiser, or soap and water.
  • PUT IT ON: When you put on the mask, ensure that the white side is facing your face and the nose strip is above your nose. Hang the ear loops over your ears and adjust as required. Make sure it completely covers your nose and mouth from the bridge of your nose down to your chin, and fits comfortably yet snug. 
  • WHILE WEARING: While you have the mask on, avoid touching it. 
  • REMOVE: When you’re done with the mask, or replacing it with a new one, carefully take it off from behind or by the straps. Be careful not to touch your face.
  • DISPOSE: Do not use single-use masks more than once. Discard them immediately upon removal.
  • WASH YOUR HANDS: After removing or whenever a used mask is accidently touched, clean your hands using an alcohol-based hand sanitiser or with soap and water. 

And washing a face mask:

  • WASH: You can wash cloth masks in the washing machine with other clothes, or hand-wash them using soap and warm water.
  • DRY: After washing your mask, dry it in the clothes dryer or naturally in fresh air before you use it again.
  • REFRESH: If your mask becomes damp while using it you should remove it, put on a fresh one and put the used one in a plastic bag for washing at the end of the day.

Driver and delivery partners can also find educational videos in the COVID Hub section of the Driver app or on our YouTube page. These videos show how to properly wear a face mask.

Practicing good hygiene

Safety standards are in place to ensure riders, driver and delivery partners are practicing good hygiene to help prevent the spread of COVID-19:

  • Pre-trip checklists: Before requesting a ride or going online, riders and driver and delivery partners must confirm that they’ve taken specific safety steps such as wearing a face mask, washing their hands or sanitising their vehicle or delivery equipment.
  • Driver-partners can cancel a trip if they have a safety concern without it affecting their cancelation rate or Uber Pro status.

Here are some tips about how to practice good hygiene:

  • Stay home if you’re unwell. 
  • Clean your car or food delivery equipment before going online, between trips and after you finish driving or delivering. Use sanitising supplies (with a minimum of 70% isopropyl alcohol) to clean places people touch regularly such as your door handles, window controls, seatbelts, steering wheel, armrest, phone and keys – full list here. Make sure to wear gloves and face masks when cleaning, and safely discard any used cleaning products, disposable gloves or masks immediately after use or put in a plastic bag for washing at the end of the day.
  • Wash your hands often: Whenever you can, wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds, and use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser between washing. 
  • Offer hand sanitiser to your riders: We’re all in this together. You’re required by CPV to keep hand sanitiser (with a minimum of 60% isopropyl alcohol) available for riders to use. 
  • Cover your mouth and nose. If you sneeze or cough, look to do so into your elbow or a tissue. 
  • Open the windows. If possible, roll down the windows to improve ventilation.

Driver and delivery partners can also find educational videos in the COVID Hub section of the Driver app or on our YouTube page. These videos provide helpful guidance on how to disinfect your vehicle and delivery equipment. Please note that the frequency with which driver-partners are required to do so is set out in the new CPV regulations. 

Working with public health authorities

We have a team available 24/7 to support public health authorities in their response to the pandemic. Working with them, we may temporarily suspend the accounts of riders, driver or delivery partners confirmed to have contracted or been exposed to COVID-19.

All trips and deliveries are GPS-tracked so we’re able to assist public health authorities with contact tracing by providing names, contact numbers and email addresses for anyone who might have contracted or been exposed to COVID-19. 

We have advised riders, driver and delivery partners to – most importantly – stay home if they are feeling sick.

We’re also consulting with an epidemiologist to make sure our efforts as a company are grounded in the latest medical advice.

Complying with new CPV regulations

To help keep the community safe from COVID-19, there have been various Commercial Passenger Vehicle (CPV) regulations introduced which impact all driver-partners in Victoria. Details on these requirements can be found here.

Posted by Uber Australia

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