1. Can employees be required to disclose if they have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or are experiencing any of its symptoms?
Yes, the EEOC has issued guidance suggesting it is permissible for employers to require employees to report a positive diagnosis of COVID-19, or if they are experiencing any of its symptoms of fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat. Employers must keep information about an employee illness as a confidential medical record.
2. Can employees be required to take a COVID-19 test, or have their temperature taken?
Yes, on April 23, the EEOC updated its COVID-19 guidance to provide that employers may require their employees to take a COVID-19 test prior to entering the workplace as long as the test is accurate and reliable, job related, and administered in a way consistent with business necessity. The same principle would apply to taking the employee’s temperature before entering the premises. As a reminder, any records kept of the employee’s health must be maintained as confidential medical records.
3. What can employers ask an employee who calls in sick?
According to the EEOC, during a pandemic employers may ask employees if they have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or are experiencing any of its symptoms (fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat) and require them to respond.
4. Can I ask an employee whether they have family members who have COVID-19 or who are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19?
No, that specific question cannot be asked because questions about family members are prohibited under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. The EEOC states that a better question to ask is: Have you had contact with anyone known by you to have been diagnosed with COVID-19, or who has or had symptoms of COVID-19? (If the answer is yes, you should not attempt to learn the identity of the patient but may want to require the employee to seek a COVID-19 test before returning to the workplace.) Employers may also ask whether an employee has been informed by a public health agency that they may have been exposed to an individual who has tested positive for COVID-19.
5. What can an employer do once an employee has been diagnosed with COVID-19 to identify everyone who has had close contact with the employee?
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the task of contact tracing is a core disease control measure that has been employed by public health personnel for decades. In contact tracing, public health staff with the Pennsylvania Department of Health or the local health department work with the patient to help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact during the timeframe while they may have been infectious. (For COVID-19, this infectious period is 48 hours prior to symptom onset until the case meets isolation discontinuance criteria.) Public health staff then notify these close contacts of their potential exposure as rapidly and sensitively as possible. To protect patient privacy, close contacts are only informed that they may have been exposed to a patient with the infection. They are not told of the identity of the patient who may have exposed them. The public health staff also provide close contacts with information on what they should do to separate themselves from others who are not exposed and how to monitor themselves for illness.
Employers can encourage any employee with a positive diagnosis of COVID-19 to cooperate fully when the public health staff calls the employee to begin the contact tracing process. Employers can also encourage the employee with the positive diagnosis to inform the public health staff of how they can reach the employer should they need information that would be helpful in their contact tracing work, such as contact information for other individuals at work that the public health staff is trying to reach.
Although the work of contact tracing is primarily for the public health authorities, employers also may ask the employee with a positive diagnosis to identify all other individuals connected to work with whom the infected employee has had close contact within the preceding 14 days. The CDC defines “close contact”: as (1) being within approximately six (6) feet of a COVID-19 case for a prolonged period of time, or (2) having direct contact with infectious secretions (e.g., being coughed on). If close contacts are identified, they should only be told that they may have been exposed to a person who has been diagnosed with COVID-19. They cannot be told the name of the positive diagnosis, or any other identifying information. Employers are permitted to require persons who may have been exposed to COVID-19 to exclude themselves from the premises for 14 days.
6. Are employers required to provide employees with protective face coverings?
The CDC has recommended wearing face coverings in public settings or where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain. Based on this recommendation, employers should consider providing employees who are required to be physically present with masks or other face coverings. In most settings, cloth face coverings should be used in order to preserve supplies of surgical or N-95 masks for health care workers and first responders.
7. Can employers require employees to wear personal protective equipment such as masks?
Yes.
8. An employee has a suspected but unconfirmed case of COVID-19. What can and should the employer do?
An employer can treat a suspected case of COVID-19 as if it is a confirmed case. An employee with a suspected case of COVID-19 should be sent home and encouraged to contact their medical provider. The employer should consider the need to interview the employee (by phone after returning home) to identify anyone connected to work with whom the person suspected to have COVID-19 has had close contact within the preceding 14 days. See FAQ # 5. If close contacts are identified, the employer should notify them that they may have been exposed to a person that the employer suspects, but does not know, has COVID-19. Care must be taken not to disclose the name of the person suspected to have COVID-19 or any other identifying information. If the employer later learns that the employee has tested positive for COVID-19, that additional fact should be communicated to the close contacts, with care not to disclose the patient’s identity.
Questions? Contact our Director of Administration, the Rev. Canon Kimberly Karashin, at kkarashin@episcopalpgh.org