Am I wrong to assume that these barriers only apply with the covers open.
Appropriate PPE is always required, regardless of covers being present or absent.
closed covers mitigate any possible shock incident, and they probably do help in the prevention of an AF occurrence, but the do nothing to lower the amount of incident energy.
While I might judge the 'normal operation' of a 3000A breaker between open and closed as having a low risk of an AF occurring, there is no way I would 'reset' a tripped breaker without PPE based on the available incident energy.
