To expect people ill with Covid stay home?

[LakelandHiker]

This week, my manager and a friend who goes to my exercise class are ill with Covid. I don't know if they've tested, but they've both said they have it. However one is still coming into the office and the other still attending the exercise class. AIBU or overreacting here... but why don't they stay home until clear? Even if 'feeling 95% better' wouldn't you wait until potentially exposing others? I can't help but feel mad at them both for being so selfish. I often look after an elderly relative and can't risk passing Covid on to her as she is frail. I get life can't be on pause forever but my manager can get paid sick leave and my friend can miss a class, it isn't like there's anything at stake...

My workplace no longer accepts a positive Covid test as a valid reason to be off sick. It hasn’t for years. You would have to be “too sick to work” (whatever that means) which may or may not mean Covid but just being positive doesn’t cut it.

Boots single covid test kits are less than £3.

My colds aren't mild, at least in comparison to my partner who can usually get rid of the same thing in a couple of days. But that doesn't mean I can take time off for every cold I have. I take time off if I'm too unwell to work (similar to you, if it goes to my chest) I can't expect to take the entire autumn and winter off work though.

How do you get them if you can't leave the house?

And I get that. But as someone with incurable cancer who is on half pay and having to juggle credit cards to pay for the basics I also have to think about it.
I am going to have to return to work because sick pay is not enough and if someone turns up with Covid I may end up in hospital - have already been in with a mild infection that wiped me out.
To those who say 'to most people it's just a cold' - that's fine but to many it's not.
society needs a big rethink around sickness and pay

I'm self employed and wouldn't do in person appointments if I had covid. I'm paying for a vaccination this week.

I’m self employed working in a small
emvironmenr closely with people on a daily basis.

I had covid recently and it wiped me out for ten days.

I could not have worked with it even if I wanted to because I was so poorly.

I am immunocompromised and it’s kicked off some other things one being a recent infection in my face and jaw which has resulted in painful dental treatment and again knocking me off my feet.

I don’t get paid if I don’t work however apart from feeling so ill for ten days there’s no way I would have wanted to pass it on to my clients and make them ill that’s why I test.

I also feel like I have a responsibility to not infect other people.

however others don’t give a shot so spread it round and yes it’s the same with colds viruses flu etc or the stomach bugs.

regardless of what it is I would rather not bloody get it

I have also just had it for the first time ever. I tested because I had just come back from East Asia and I am also a Nurse (community), should I have gone to work?

Who tests for Covid and why? Treat any illness as you usually would, if you’re well enough to work then do, if not then stay home. We can’t all isolate again with every illness. My whole family have been poorly for two weeks pretty much but life goes on! I work in a hospital, we aren’t required to test and would be expected to work (as would Dr’s and surgeons etc) even if they had COVID and felt ok!

No sick pay, would have to work

I do understand that your situation is horrible to be in (sorry I know that doesn't even touch the sides of what you're living with), and I know that people with chronic illness and/or disability are disproportionately affected financially. At the same time though, in my work place you'd be hard pressed to find someone in the last two weeks who hasn't had a cold or bug of some form, we work with the public and things go round, it's not possible to do the job fully from home. Even with the most generous sick pay arrangements, the numbers just wouldn't stack up if everyone had to stay off work when they had minor illnesses. Whole departments would close. The sheer volume of people who would have to take time off for common illnesses to mitigate the risk for minority of people who are immunocompromised wouldn't be sustainable.
Obviously if there can be steps put in place to protect individuals where vulnerabilities are known (eg adjustment of duties, extra hygiene) that should be done.

Where did I say they did?

No, I don’t stay at home with a cold. I take tablets to stop me sneezing all over everyone, and go to work (though trying to not go too close to anyone).

If I have an illness with a high fever and bad cough I test to see if it is Covid. If it is, I stay off while I have bad symptoms. When I had Covid recently there is no way I could have gone to work at the peak of the illness, whether I got sick pay or not - I could hardly stagger out of bed to go to the loo for frequent diarrhoea.

Your elderly relawill havd had the jab. Stop worrying

I know I had covid several times (ie when testing) but I only had severe symptoms once (fever). Most of the time for me it's been a relatively mild, but weird illness. So I (like most people) can't take time off for that. Taking time off work is usually dependent on the severity for the individual, not the type of illness they have.

I agree.

One of the good things about Universal Credit is that people who lose pay when off sick get some of the loss of earnings offset by an increase in UC.

Do you have the booster vaccinations?

Do you know how vaccines work?

FYI, they don't stop you catching it, only stop you from dying (hopefully).

Covid has been proven to be a flu bug just like any other one. Stop overdramatising! I say that as someone who has no immune system and on immunosuppressants who tries to live life to the full as tomorrow you could be run over by a bus! Let other people get on with their lives

But then you shouldn’t be saying things like "Covid is no worse than any other viral illness these days", because it’s not true that it’s no worse than, say, a cold, and ignorant people might believe you.

Where did you get the nonsense from they stop you from dying? 🤣 We have immune systems that do that and even when our immune systems are shot the Covid vaccine won’t protect us

I didn't say that, I think you're mixing me up with another poster.

Oh yes, sorry.

Who's going to tell her? 🤣

Btw, they don't usually give the vaccines to the ones with immune systems. I would know because I'm on of the very few that are eligible for one on the NHS.

They are for the vulnerable elderly and those of us with suppressed immune systems, I.e. no immune systems.

No so 'we don't have immune systems that do that'. YOU do, I don't. Just like many others on this post.

Personally i’d work at home and avoid unnecessary classes, same as if I had flu, or a virus etc. Making people sick isn’t something i’d do if I knew I was sick.