One of our employees went to France for a vacation a week ago, is now in the UK and plans to be back at work tomorrow or Monday.  I just had a talk with the boss vetoing this idea and feel she should in the first place never have left the country, but should not be allowed back on the job until she's either tested or quarantined at home for 14 days.

What would you think in this situation?  I have no problem with being the bad guy here.  China "was" the epicenter for coronavirus, now it's Europe.  They simply didn't get in gear to control the disease like we're trying to do here.

Can the employee do some of their work from home? 

Most companies are allowing paid leave for any individuals that may require quaranine whether imposed or self-quarantine. This is what our small bank is planning on setting up should it be necessary. We are also not allowing anyone to come to work sick. We would rather pay them than spread anything and we are not even in a state with any cases.

Totally set up to work at home.  It's just whether or not anyone will pay any attention to me as far as taking the steps to require her to do this.  

I think it's a reasonable request considering all that is going on.  Especially since the employee can work from home.

Ease up threre Mrs. Kravitz

If they are set up to work from home, they should stay at home. 

This is a fast-spreading highly contagious sometimes deadly disease .  Ease up why?

I feel like someone who's been on a plane or a cruise should quarantine themselves, especially if they're travelling in Europe.   Reports from various parts of Europe are very bad.  

Do you work with the public, or in health care? If this person, can and will work from that would be ideal. 

I have a co-worker who was in Italy last week at Disney. 

I had no idea he'd been out of the country. I don't think it would of got around except another guy here is freaking the flip out. .Like not showing up to work, and refusing to go on a work trip to Alaska next week flipping out.

My boss ask the VP of finance, who is in California, what he thought about it. All he said was the company hadn't implemented policy about it and is trying not to buy into the panic. 

While I think the guy who was in Italy should of had the decency to send an email to our local GM and ask him how he wanted it handled, instead he just came back to work like no big deal.

Me, I've been looking at prices on a 4 day trip to Cancun next month. . . I'm seriously considering it.

We're an aircraft parts distributor with quite a few employees.  Wow, Italy is a total hot spot.  The whole country is locked down.  

I talked to my family in Europe every single day, sometimes 4 times a day ( so thankful for modern technology!) All what I can say is that at first everyone was like... what's the big deal!? now the concern is a bit more serious.  I have a niece going to school in Scotland  and her school cancelled classes AND the hotel where she works cancelled all the scheduled conventions SO..... I would say better safe than sorry!

because it's the flu

people get sick and sometimes old, infirm people die. 


The mass hysteria, of which you are buying into, will be far more damageing to society than a few folks with the flu

I'm not seeing mass hysteria as much as simple precautions.

Surely by now our government has managed to establish some protocol to test and/or quarantine everyone arriving from our of the country.  They now claim to finally have millions of tests  available, so it should be relatively simple.

that's the funniest thing I have read on here in months. 

Liberals are easily entertained. 

No TP, water or hand sanitizer in stores and shutting down the Houston Rodeo is not bordering on mass hysteria? As far as I know there are no known cases of covid in Houston or surrounding areas. Most of the visitors are from the state of Texas and most of those are from the Houston area.  Those were the stats they put out right before the rodeo was shut down. Washington state is a different story, but most of the country is covid free. 

There's only 4 covid-19 "free" states at the moment actually. With TX being the 6th or 7th highest in number of cases right now. I'd consider the shopping situation mass hysteria/stupidity. Although I still have no idea what toilet paper has to do with anything regarding a respiratory illnes & nobody is worrying about buying kleenex. Maybe its for those who tend to accidents when they cough or sneeze. But I wouldn't consider shutting down eventa as mass hysteria, thats just them trying to temporarily reduce the spread so we don't end up like China or Italy where it's far worse. It's not just about wether we're worried about if we'll get it, for most people its who they might give it to if they get it. And lets be honest, 90% of those that do aren't going to quarantine themselves. I wouldn't get paid to stay home, so if I get it I'm going to be at my desk Mon-Fri sharing it with everyone in my office. I cannot work from home and I cannot afford even 2 days off unpaid. If my work decides to change the current policy and pay me to stay home I will. I am also payroll, the only payroll person, so if I'm not there then nobody gets paid each week which upsets the whole company. That would be up to my employer. Not everyone has the same thoughts & opinions on it either, some think we're all going to die and some think its just a little cold going through. Everyone's opinion is justified so if they don't feel threatened by a coworker who traveled then they're entitled to feel that way. Then you just have to do the best you can at prevention for yourself just in case. 

For me, if I get it then it is what it is, I'm not worried about myself. But if I got it & gave it to my 87 year old grandma that I help take care of then thats another story. And if she died because I gave it to her, thats not a weight I'd want anyone to have to carry.  I'd prefer we cancel/postpone things now, contain it the best we can & then move on if they consider that to be the best thing. I'd prefer they do it like Nascar, who is continuing but eliminating the spectators. We can still watch on tv, whereas the rodeo thats not the case. If we did just let things stay and not try to contain a spread we could find ourselves all forced to stay in our homes which would suck. 

If you are going to require them to stay home for 14 day then the company will have to give them "paid time off" so they don't have to use sick/vacation time.  I have a lot of people I work with that plan and pay for vacations well over a year in advance.  They had no way of knowing this was going to get so out of hand.  JMHO

Our company just had a meeting today and it is just getting so crazy!  I get it using precautions and now they have sanitizer in RA and gloves.  What gets me is for years we have had people so sick with the flu and passed it around and also no doctor note was good enough and even if you was in hospital you got pointed for not showing to work.  and now doctors notes ok and dont come in if you have fever blah blah blah  dont get me wrong I dont want to get sick but I think these precautions and doctors notes and hospital should have been accepted long before the CV!  I know the toilet papaer mill is probably getting some overtime!

32 cases in Texas. No deaths as of today. So yeah, I am sticking to the overreacting/hysteria theme. The cases are from people contracting it from foreign travel and passing it to their wife and 3 year old child and another passing it to their 77 year old father. So, I am washing my hands as we already should be and were taught by our mothers. I am taking Vingaex and a couple other supplements to boost my immune system as I do every flu season. 

I took it to mean SHE wasn't going into mass hysteria. . . Unlike so many other people worldwide apparently.  

I think as of right now, we have to use pto if we took a vacation and have to self quarantine. If we are exposed at work, they are paying for it. We have to call a hotline when we return from vacation before we can work. 

This person is an old-timer and has tons of sick leave.  I'll find out today what's going on but the feeling I was getting at the end of the day yesterday is that her manager is leaving for Hawaii today on vacation and wants this person coming back from France to cover her desk so no.............

At this point, if your company does not have a policy and they require her to stay home then it should be paid. If they have apolicy and she knows/knew the risk then I suppose she is responsible for her QT. 

I encourage people to research the actual stats comparing Corona to the other "deadly" flu's we have encountered over the years. There are charts and graphs available to see them side by side that I think are very comforting and informative. Am i going around licking toilet seats? No. Am I washing my hands? Yes (like I always do). 81% of those who contract it could easily confuse it with a typical cold. I bet so many people have had it and stayed home sick and didnt get tested. 

yes the elderly and weakened immune system folks are at higher risk... as they are with ANY virus. Just be smart people. Drink water, get rest, take a vitamin and wash your frikkin hands. 

VP Pence declared today that any Americans coming from Europe should self quarantine for 14 days.  I agree that this "may" be overblown but while the whole country is taking extreme precautions it would seem that our company should too.  This is more of a family business and even if you ran out of sick leave you would likely still be paid.  I saw video yesterday of patients in Italy that were seriously ill and they were not elderly.  They let this virus get totally out of hand.  President Trump initially stopping flights from China was a huge deterrent.

We had a company meeting and they said they plan on taking no action unless enough people her eget sick that we have to close. Just told us to wash our hands and if we do close we will have to try to file for unemployment as a temprary layoff to be paid. However people in my area still don't seem to be concerned about anything besides ****ting their pants or their tap water suddenly developing a deadly virus. I drove through town last night around 6:30 and the restraunts were slammed, Hobby Lobby's parking lot was full of shoppers, and the gyms were all packed as usual. Literally everyone in town was out & about. So nobody here in central IL is paying much attention to it I guess. 

Italy, like China, also has poor healthcare which is going to leave it being much worse there. Of course the media is going to show you there's younger people struggling with it, they're thriving off of this right now and want to twist things to make us think these bad cases are what they're all going through. They want us to panic, they want us to be crippled in fear of it. Never take what they portray as the truth. Especially when the people in america who have "survived" it so far are saying even though they tested positive nothing ever happened. Those sick people in italy could have othe rmajor health issues, for all we know they could have cancer on top of this, which the media is never going to tell you bc they want you to think its an average healthy person. The people who are freaking out about this and not the flu, (which is way way wayyyyyyy worse and you're at higher risk for), are hypocrites. 

I wish I could share the facts that are from the CDC but put into graphs. They break down the deaths, age and their pre-existing condition. I dont have access to it at work but it is very eye opening. 

I have read interviews from both a 30s female and late 60s male who both are recovered, the male had pre-existing health issues too. he said spiked a high fever and had a dry cough but otherwise was fine for majority of his time in QT. They provided him gatorade. 

ETA: https://www.instagram.com/p/B9nrTQVpchF/?igshid=177ngir60fyh8

My boss was suppose to fly from Rapid City to Salt Lake next week and our GM shut that down.

Our GM flies to and from Califonia every week, he said he's flying home today and probably won't be back for a month.

They've now cancelled all travel for my company. 

No official statement from the company yet, but I'm betting there will be one soon.

They've postponed our high school prom, there is less than 200 kids in the whole school, they've done 2 nights of their school play and have postponed the rest. . . and word is they're going to start doing classes online.

I'm still just floored how it has crippled the entire country.

President speaks today and it's believed he'll declare a national emergency.   It would be easy to want to believe none of this is necessary but on the other hand something is dreadfully wrong.

Nobody is being the bad guy in this case, its just everybody should be looking out for each other, {I didnt read all the coments.} I think common sense should be used in how things are handled..