New Coronavirus Travel Risk: Employer-Imposed Quarantine

Finally, someone is using reason.

Paid time, I hope.
In France, people are automatically getting 20 days of sick leave to self-isolate.

Will the employer pay salary for those days ? Without requiring use of sick leave / PTO days ??

It use to be that most full time working employees got 2 weeks of vacation a year and 5 days of sick leave (sort of an average). Then cities and states began imposing a minimum of 6, 7, 8 or more mandatory sick days. To control costs many employers went from Vacation + Sick to Personal Time Off which combined the two. So no a lot of us get three weeks of PTO. I am afraid in that situation the employer will say, you got three weeks, use it. Sounds fair to me.

Oh, I have a good employer, he adds a week each 5 years of employment. Which means I get a month paid and I add a week or two unpaid so I can travel a few times a year.

The e-mail/memo did not state how compensation for those days would work. I'm guessing it depends on one's role in the organization. For me, it would mean no pay because I'm paid based on productivity that requires me to be in the office. No work = no pay for those days.

My employer has had a policy in place since the China travel advisory first came out. Basically,
1) No business travel to the level 3 countries.
2) Telework for two weeks if you return from one of the level 3 countries.

This is just normal business continuity planning.

So if the virus casualties increase (which, unfortunately, is happening at the moment), will your company require reporting for domestic travel. Like to Washington State, for example?

I think that the spread of this virus will soon be so common that travel restrictions will no longer make sense. Just an opinion.
I live in Washington State and work in the schools. It has been interesting to see the different, and sometimes, over the top responses to the outbreak. Part of the challenge is that people really aren't sure about what will happen next.

Evidently, they will have plenty of toilet paper to see themselves through since the stores have been emptied of this product........

This is just normal business continuity planning.

What Laura said. The only change to my plans is I’m bringing my work laptop/phone in the event I get “stuck” in France because my employer hasn’t yet worked out how PTO in a quarantine or self-isolation situation will be handled from a comp perspective.

In my work we have to take two weeks of unpaid leave if we travel to an area which has confirmed cases of the virus, which I find silly because the city I work in itself has confirmed cases! I have a friend living in Berlin who I was going to visit in two weeks time, which I beleive now has one confirmed case. So annoying I don´t know whether I should go or not. I can´t afford to have two weeks unpaid off from work. It´s just annoying cause the risk in Berlin is definitely no more than it is in Dublin.

Cyn -- According to the current policy, I could travel to Washington, visit the residents of the nursing facility with the current outbreak, and return to work the next day without notifying anyone. Some part of me would like to point that out, but It annoys the big wigs in the company when I point out holes in their policies (based on previous experience!).

Carol -- I tend to agree that the spread of the virus at some point will be so widespread that it will become a part of everyday life.

Jane Lally -- The first Berlin case is very interesting (as of last night, it was up to 3 cases in Berlin -- 2 from Mitte [who apparently had no contact with each other] and 1 from another district). The first case was transported by ambulance to an ER in the morning, was worked up (but not for coronavirus), and sent out. He presented to a different facility that night -- a Charité facility -- where he had a negative flu test. Charité had established a policy to check all patients with negative flu tests for coronavirus. He was checked due to the policy (not due to suspicion of coronavirus), and his illness was picked up that way.

Other than if as part of your job they send you into a high risk area, then ask you to stay out of the office for two weeks I am not really sure why anyone would expect more than standard sick leave coverage? If you have a heart attack and are out for longer than sick leave coverage do they extend it for that too? How about the common flu?

And "quaranteen" isnt the term for dont come to work. No boss is quaranteening you. Only the government can do that.

I am part of the "let's just all get sick and get it over with" faction. Next year we will have a 55% effective flu shot for it. This year we just grin and bear it.

If you have a heart attack and are out for longer than sick leave coverage do they extend it for that too? How about the common flu?

In the United States? You clearly know the answer to that is "no." Elsewhere? I'm pretty sure many employers are required to do so by law. Just another reason I suspect the spread of the virus may play out very differently here in the US than it is in Europe and other places with strong healthcare systems and employment laws.

k-Anderson, which places?

The difference in cost per month between a 2500 sf typical American house and a 750 sf typical European house would just about pay for 6 weeks of suck leave a year. A trade off I think is fair.

My point really was, we all get sick, why is this bug different than the others? We should just let it play out and get past it and spend our resources protecting the high risk population. I will be in Europe in a few months, if I catch it there will probably be no symptoms till I get back and I have been honest enough to save my sick leave for when I was really sick, and frugal enough to pack away a few dollars if it runs longer ... and I can own a house I am comfortable in as well.

Yes, many companies found a way around mandatory sick days by just lumping everything together as PTO. Three weeks is common.

Around here you don't get any more time off for self-isolation, especially with international vacations as you assume the risk.

As far as business travel, that's been cut way back due to teleconferencing.

I also agree this virus will likely be everywhere, but still, confinement in a tight space such as an airplane certainly increases the risk, especially if someone near you is sick and there's no escape.

James, it seems the deaths are generally confined to people with preexisting conditions or other health issues that compromise the immune system. Diabetes, for example. Yes, getting sick is part of life.

but how would an employer know where someone traveled on their
vacation? None of their business...

Trust?

Big Mike, this needless panic is pulling resources from the compromised that need the extra precautions. Almost selfish.

I have employees in Europe now, and more going in the next few months. I'm just going to ask them to be considerate of their coworkers for two weeks when they get back. Not because of Europe, because of the plane.

I work at a university and we are currently restricted from traveling to China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, and Japan. We are being told to stay home if sick and the usual "wash your hands" sort of advice. Some obvious issues are when inevitably one of the more obstinate professors tells some sick student that they'll get a zero if they miss some quiz or exam, and hourly workers if they run out of sick days.

I have a student that was registered into one of my classes several weeks late, that I have to help get caught up, because a Study Abroad semester in South Korea was canceled; the students involved had literally flown to another airport in the US and were about to board a flight to South Korea when they were informed via text to not get on that plane.

Understanding that benefits (or more properly, the lack thereof) vary wildly, you may also look to short term disability if applicable.

For those in cases where they are told to stay out of work, but not offered compensation, you could raise questions of the legality of the action. It would be a basis for an unemployment insurance claim (same as laid off) or you could just show up to work and let them force the issue. I do understand work circumstances are different, fear of being fired, hate to piss off the boss, etc., but a good employer will work with you to resolve.

Paul, good advice.

I’m curious how an employer would know. That seems way too big brother for me, unless I was working in a top secret military job and decided to honeymoon in Pyongyang.

I’m curious how an employer would know. That seems way too big brother
for me, unless I was working in a top secret military job and decided
to honeymoon in Pyongyang.

Dale, so you would compromise the health of your co-workers? With my employees I dont have to know the details. If I ask them for their consideration I have faith that they will also want to be considerate. If one of them went to Pyongyang and that is in a CDC Level 3 area, I would simply expect them to call in and say they are going to follow office protocol and would be getting back when they doctor said is was advisable to do so. I just assumed that everyone works with the sort of people I work with.

My older son's company that is a multi-national company has forbid all travel -- domestic and international without prior approval. Younger son in SF area has spent a nervous week with six S Koreans in his office almost every day since they have a huge construction underway in SK. We are in un-chartered territory and most companies are trying to do what is in their best interests but have little experience with current problems.

Frank, un-chartered territory??

The swine flu, caused the 2009 global pandemic. An estimated 151,000-575,000 people worldwide died from the H1N1 virus in 2009. Of those, there were an estimated 12,400 deaths in the U.S. 2009? Just 11 years ago??? So far this flu is nothing compared to 2009; and lets pray it stays that way and maybe it will because in 2009 we didnt do a heck of a lot. No closed borders, lots of concern, but no real panic.

A lot of people don’t realize that when you have a security clearance, you have to notify your company’s security department or DOD before you travel anywhere out of the country. Depending where you travel, you might even be debriefed after you get back. Any foreign travel could be denied because of the clearance. It is not just our adversaries they are worried about. I can remember a briefing about not talking business on Air France planes. They did not go into the details why, but I suspect that Intellectual Property concerns were involved more than National Security. You also have to disclose any foreign contacts that you communicate with. I had friends in South America that I disclosed and was advised that I should suspend contact with them while having my clearance.

My company has imposed a 2 week work-from-home restriction on those returning from several hard-hit countries, including Italy (of interest to this Europe focused forum). I can work from home (but did not have plans to travel to relevant areas during this time anyway) but the e-mail policy also said to contact HR about getting paid for your time if your job is unable to be done at home. I don't know how that will work out for those people, but apparently it is at least an option.

How many people had special sick leave arrangements 9 years ago during the Swine Flu epidemic? That one, so far, was literally 100 times worse.

The thing is you can have and transmit the virus before showing symptoms. And early on it could feel like just a typical cold with a headache and mild fever. I think we've all gone to work like that more or less.

In some of my past years if I stayed home every day I had a cold I wouldn't have had much vacation time left.

One rule of thumb I heard from a coworker: Never waste sick days for when you're sick.

Working for myself almost 40 years the philosophy was only reason NOT to go to work was if you were dead. Probably not the best choice on several occasions.

For my employees they received a certain number of PTO days (paid time off), matters not how you use them. How would being gone for vacation be different from a sick child or illness (other than the inability to plan the illness)?

Sometimes it is not all about you! My vacations were always planned 8-12 months in advance, on occasion it just did not work out. Life ain't always fair!

It's a bit of a fine line between going to work with a cold and going to work when you're really sick with a fever.

I get that people don't want to blow their PTO on being sick, but I also understand the selfishness of making everyone else at work sick. Having said that we all probably know intuitively when going to work is unwise.

I will abide by my company's policy. To be honest, I would expose myself and my organization to significant legal risk if I did not follow the policy and developed symptoms after returning to work. With the policy looming over my head, I'm going to cancel a trip to Berlin in late April -- since there are cases there, I would have to sit out work for two weeks on return. I will wait to see what happens before making a decision on my May trip to Bavaria/Austria; that trip includes a trip to the Oberammergau Passion Play. I guess if large gatherings start getting shut down, the once-a-decade play may fall victim.

Our time off was generous with sick time of 12 days a year and 10 days vacation increasing every 5 years by a week. Sick time could accrue up to 3 months.
I had employees use their 12 days of sick time because by golly they could. One gal called in sick the last Friday of every month unless there was a Monday holiday that fell before the end of the month. My hands were tied for the most part. You guessed it, she came to work ill often. Several times I was forced to send her to medical who would send her home. Not all employees are honest and only think of themselves.

Wow. In Europe, France is my country of reference, sick leave is paid by the governments, like an unemployment scheme. If one is seriously ill, it could be indefinite. There’s no 10-day limit and it doesn’t affect vacation time. It needs a doctor’s authorization to take effect. There’s less affect on the safety of fellow workers. Employers pay half the tax for the medical care and leave benefit while the employees pay the other half.

It's a well known fact that 40% of sick days are taken on Monday or Friday.

It’s a well known fact that Eric has a great sense of humor. That made me laugh out loud.

So far I've seen scaling back of business travel. I don't think it's a bad idea to screen people returning from personal travel - especially if it were to a heavily affected area. I have the option of teleworking so it wouldn't be sick days as much as working from home.

A lot of folks use sick days as "mental health" days.

But how to screen? Simply checking temperature has little to no mean.

my Job is requesting us not to travel to ANY country the CDC has listed (level 1 thru 3)

If we do go, we have to notify them when we get back and posible be furloughed for 14 days

Funny, during the 2009 H1N1 spread I did go to China and my managers did know about it -- and nobody was concerned when I returned to work. Biggest worry was that China was screening visitors and there had been some cases of the virus in California so I wasn't sure I could get in without being quarantined long enough to miss the solar eclipse.

Ahhh... H1N1 2009... I spent much time reassuring many a parent that their 2-year-old with a cold was not spiraling toward death. Most accepted the reassurance; some did not. I see 2 big differences between 2009 H1N1 flu and the current epidemic...

1. There were well-known, readily-available medications (though there were shortages) in the form of oseltamivir (Tamiflu), amantadine, and rimantadine to treat H1N1 (Edit: amantadine and rimantadine actually were not recommended, but zanamivir [along with Tamiflu was). We're still figuring out what (if anything) works on COVID-19.
2. The death rate for H1N1 was much smaller. The US case fatality rate was 0.02% (Source: CDC). While H1N1 was hardest on children, it never had a crude fatality rate of 15% for a segment of the population (as does COVID-19 for the 80+ crowd, at least based on China data) or 3.4% across all age groups.

My employer wanted to know about any travel, not just international travel, for the next two months. It cancelled all but essential work travel.

Dave, you are about half correct. But this probably isnt the right place to argue it.

jaimeelsabio, I'm not sure if they are not putting themselves at some legal risk with that demand. I've had to do some research on the subject in the past and it probably isnt the best idea. We are requiring anyone who has been in a Level 2 or 3 area to self quarantine for 2 weeks or until they can show up with a note from their doctor. But it's pretty much the honor system. Still, most talk about their upcoming trips so we know, but dont feel its within our rights to ask. We may be on thin ice even with this, as long as it's legal to go to Milan, who are we to punish them for legal acts. We are going to, when possible, let them work from home, but when we cant, its PTO. Still not sure how well this would hold up if challenged. The panic has charted new territory. Why is this different than the common flu, and why dont we have the same rules for the flu. By the way, the flu is sweeping our office right now.

James E...

I stand corrected. Oseltamivir and zanamivir were effective. Amantadine and rimantadine were not recommended due to prior patterns of resistance in flu strains. Meh... I bailed early on primary care during the pandemic to do a fellowship in something that didn't involve infectious disease.

https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1807048-medication

Since most of our travel involves my husband's business trips, often to scientific meetings, our travel is now shut down-don't know for how long.

I just found incredible tickets to Budapest so i'm off in a few weeks.

Anyone who is off to Europe at this time: are you prepared to self-isolate upon return if the place you are visiting has a spike in cases? You may be resistant, but is everyone else in your community? You may have nothing more than a nose tickle and sneeze, but the old person in line in front of you could go into secondary infection, septic shock, and die.

Not knowing what the situation would be returning a month later, we stocked our house before leaving and are ready to self-isolate when we return from France.
It would be unconscionable of me to return to normal activities without being sure that I'm free of the virus. I would never want to pass this on to friends and acquaintances. We have found ourselves in a worsening situation during the course of a week, with cases in France quadrupling. It could happen anywhere you travel. Are you preparing for self-isolation upon return?

Anyone who is off to Europe at this time: are you prepared to
self-isolate upon return if the place you are visiting has a spike in
cases?

Yes and no. The country I am going to reports 7 cases to date. All but one directly attributable to people that traveled to Level 3 areas. Its the plane trip that bothers me. Not where I am going. That plane will be full of people from all over the world. I have my mask, the first time someone coughs on the airplane, it goes on. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks I will dress in a manner that encourages people to keep their distance from me. I explained this in another post and it didnt go over well. Lets just say it will make me persona non grata for a certain segment of the US population. Otherwise I wipe everything down when I get on the plane and stay at arms length as much as is practical.

I plan on staying at arms length from everyone for a few weeks. If I exhibit the tiniest symptom, then I stay home.

Not knowing what the situation would be returning a month later, we
stocked our house before leaving and are ready to self-isolate when we
return from France.

I have stockpiled Pizza delivery coupons for the quarantine if necessary.

It would be unconscionable of me to return to normal activities
without being sure that I'm free of the virus.

Nobel and correct.

Let's keep in mind that the US has administered tens of thousands fewer Covid-19 tests than other countries. It is not reasonable to assume that our current numbers reflect reality. There is not good reason to assume that risk is higher everywhere abroad.

Tim, you are correct. It will be interesting to see how the statistics change over the next few weeks as the planned increase in testing takes place. But again, I think the testing will be of those suspected of having or suspected of being exposed, so even that number will not be representative of the country as a whole. What I see so far is a disease that is merciless to the old and infirm and rather than concentrating on that segment and letting everyone else "have the flu" we are responding to other pressures. I would test and quarantine ever care facility for the old.

The low number of tests conducted in the USA is surprising and worrying. Also, surprising is how hard it is to find out how many tests have been done. Apparently CDC has now done about 2,000 but there are additional ones carried out at local level. By contrast, the UK for example has conducted 25,000 tests. I'd bear this discrepancy in mind when considering what the infection levels really are and how it might skyrocket in coming days and weeks.

France had 9 cases a couple of weeks ago, 100 as we were packing our suitcases one week ago today. We felt safe to go. It’s now over 1,200.

Granted that it’s in clusters, and we know much more about the spread as well as the tipping point that leads to death than we did even a week ago.

Tim, other than Italy, no European country has performed "Tens of Thousands" of tests. Italy at something over 20,000 qualifies by that statement by a factor of two. Meaning one country has performed tens of thousands of tests more than the US. This is called hyperbolizing.

But I do wonder what all those CDC noggin heads have been doing for the last decade to leave of less prepared than one would expect. When this is over all the career appointees should be encouraged to find new jobs. I looked up their leadership and most have been there for 10 to 20 years..... gone stale I guess.

First, I hope we send the tests to retirement homes and for anyone over 60 who wants a test. Then anything left for the general population.

James— a certain president fired key cdc “noggin heads” in 2018 that were pandemic experts, and did not replace them. Maybe next time around key “noggin heads” at the top of the government could make sure key emergency preparedness positions aren’t left empty.

Strange, I just went to their staff webpage and most every leadership person I saw had been there for more than 10 years. They have probably been altered.

Not knowing who came before them, they do have pretty impressive resumes

https://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/oid.html

https://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/ncird.html

https://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/ophss.html

https://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/ncezid.html

Oh, you mean this one, relax, she got fired: https://whistleblower.org/us-government/obama-administration/cdc-director-julie-gerberding-ousted-by-obama-administration-effective-january-20/

The point is, people smarter than me are working hard. I will save the criticism for the clear mind of history.

This thread is getting progressively political in nature. Locking it here so that the gist of the thread can remain. Thanks, everyone.