Many states that relaxed quarantine measures are now
seeing rising cases of coronavirus.
And there’s still the fundamental question about
working in the midst of a pandemic: How do we stop
people from getting sick on the job?
-I think there are really important lessons to learn from the past.
The messages that we were hearing during the H1N1
pandemic were similar to what we’re hearing now: Stay home.
Don't spread this to other people.
And many people did not have a real choice to stay home.
And we’re seeing that now.
-We begin with swine flu, now widespread in 46 states.
In the spring of 2009, a new H1N1 influenza virus, known as
swine flu, was first detected in humans.
That summer, a pandemic was declared, and it
was in the fall that the highest rates of infection were reported.
-They’re going to work where they’re around other individuals,
touching their, their face inadvertently, touching door
knobs, high-contact areas.
You can see how that number can
spread so easily.
I, myself, was sick.
I was supposed to travel for work.
Being a public health person, I knew that that wasn’t
the best thing to do, to put other people at risk.
I was able to stay home, um, until I didn’t have a
fever anymore, until I felt better, because I worked at a place
that provided that benefit.
But for people who don’t, I can see why
that’s such a hard decision to make.
-Well, if you get the H1N1 flu, should you stay home
or go to work?
It’s a tough choice millions of Americans are making
because they have no paid sick leave.
-We know that the workers who are most in need are least likely
to have access to paid sick leave.
It’s overwhelmingly low-income workers, workers of color, people
who work in small businesses, that just tend not to have access
to these types of benefits.
-A week off of work would be really bad.
That’s a whole, that’s like rent.
And it turned out that about five to seven million people are thought
to have gotten the H1N1 virus because their co-workers went to
work sick with the disease.
-The federal government has been telling people who have
fevers or sick kids to stay home to slow the spread of the
H1N1 virus.
It is believed the rate of infection could be cut in, by a
third, that is, if infectious folks didn’t go to work or school until
their fever was gone.
So Congress began debating a federal emergency paid sick leave
policy, as well as the potential for something longer lasting.
-According to Congress, 57 million Americans don’t have paid
sick and medical leave.
That puts the U.S. in the company of only a
handful of nations that don’t guarantee sick leave for citizens.
But there was also pushback against the measure, and some
small business owners were especially concerned.
-It’s a huge challenge.
-Hugely expensive.
-It is a hugely expensive challenge to put on top of a
restaurant in this, you know, anytime, but especially in the
current economy that we’re in.
-When we look at what happened with H1N1, there were hearings,
there were debates.
And we still do not have federal
paid sick leave policy.
But in recent years, low-wage workers have pushed some
states and cities to pass their own legislation.
And the difference between states that do mandate
paid sick days and those that don’t has given researchers a
window into the effect the policy can have on containing an
infectious disease.
-So, we see when we compare states that implement paid sick
leave and compare them to states that do not, we find that
influenza-like illness rates, or basically flu rates, decrease
significantly in the next couple of months and even years.
-We’re dealing with Covid-19 right now, but these issues are relevant
for the seasonal flu, for other types of illnesses, other types of
infectious diseases.
So, paid sick leave would not at all stop
coronavirus from spreading.
But what it could do is really help to
contain the risk of transmission to other individuals.
In March, Congress passed emergency legislation, requiring
some companies to offer paid sick leave through the rest of the year,
and offering tax credits
to cover those costs.
But the bill excluded many people, including a lot of
essential workers.
-A lot of us are really literally making the decision between,
you know, our health and our financial security right now.
But just having access to a sick day doesn’t mean someone will
actually take it.
In a survey that asked employees what they think
of co-workers who come in sick, most people say that person is
showing dedication to the job.
-My fever has gone up a couple of degrees in like the last
30 minutes.
Nights are tough.
I’ve lost 13 pounds in three days.
-We had suggested you not work right now.
I mean, I know you, you’re, you’re incapable of not
working and talking about this, but, just for the record, we, we,
we did suggest it.
-Work is so important to most people’s lives.
We live in a society where work is important to our,
uh, material well-being, a central part of our identity, our creativity.
Employees say they often power through because taking a day off
could affect job security.
Those concerns have
heightened during this pandemic
when unemployment is at its highest rates since the Depression.
-The current situation right now is, you know, so precarious in so
many ways. Economic insecurity is so high.
When people may not be so sick that they have to be
bedridden, uh, that they might try to go into work because the cost of,
uh, not going to work or not continuing to be productive
is so great.
And businesses are also struggling to stay afloat during a
pandemic recession.
Business groups have cautioned against
making the 2020 expanded paid sick leave measure a
permanent mandate.
-It’s very easy to say, oh, gosh, paid sick leave is a wonderful
benefit, everybody should have it.
I don’t disagree.
But is the answer telling every employer,
thou shalt provide it?
Unlike some countries that offer government support for paid sick
leave, in the United States, it’s largely left to the employer.
-The workplace has an enormous role here that it doesn’t quite have
in other parts of the world.
Though there are debates about the economic impacts of paid sick
leave policies, a recent review of studies of workplaces that were
mandated to offer sick days found that most employers reported that
it didn’t significantly impact their bottom line.
-Whether it’s through the workplace, whether it’s through
state plans, health is important, work is important.
And when we sit back and we look at how our
policies create barriers to helping people to stay healthy,
and helping workplaces to be healthy and productive,
then we haven’t learned anything.