One alternative is to take no regulatory action. OSHA is examining regulatory alternatives for control measures to protect employees from infectious disease exposures to pathogens that can cause significant disease. In addition to health care, workplaces where SERs suggested such control measures might be necessary include: emergency response, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, drug treatment programs, and other occupational settings where employees can be at increased risk of exposure to potentially infectious people.

A standard could also apply to laboratories, which handle materials that may be a source of pathogens, and to pathologists, coroners' offices, medical examiners, and mortuaries.  OSHA offered several alternatives to the SBREFA panel when presenting the proposed Infectious Disease (ID) rule. OSHA considered a specification oriented rule rather than a performance oriented rule, but has preliminarily determined that this type of rule would provide less flexibility and would likely fail to anticipate all of the potential hazards and necessary controls for every type and every size of facility and would under-protect workers. OSHA also considered changing the scope of the rule by restricting the ID rule to workers who have occupational exposure during the provision of direct patient care in institutional settings but based on the evidence thus far analyzed, workers performing other covered tasks in both institutional and non-institutional settings also face a risk of infection because of their occupational exposure.