Ross: Coronavirus shows why we need paid medical leave in US
Mar 2, 2020, 7:32 AM | Updated: Oct 8, 2024, 7:39 am
An employee at a Kirkland nursing facility takes a break. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
What makes the coronavirus so scary is that we don’t know how dangerous it is, and there won’t be a vaccine for at least a year.
That means that the only way to contain it is to “self-isolate.” Doctors agree that if you feel sick, you should stay home. Basically, quarantine yourself for the good of the community.
The trouble is there are a lot of people who just can’t afford to do that, because they need their pay check. So unless they’re actually incapacitated, they’re going to keep working even if they have the sniffles.
Thus, have we all become test subjects in a huge research study.
Because there are, at the moment, 10 states that require mandatory paid medical leave. One of the main arguments for paid leave is that there is a much better chance of sick employees staying home if they’re not worried about making the rent.
Those states are in two clusters: The entire West Coast spanning Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and most of New England.
Given that the COVID-19 outbreak will be the most carefully-tracked epidemic in history, by comparing the spread in those states to the other 40, we should be able to find out whether paid medical leave is merely an eruption of idealism, or something that those other 40 states had better adopt before the next unexpected virus appears.
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