ANother way is to elaborate on the TRUTH, on your front page since you have so many readers in the USA:
Obama is NOT the fault.
Trump is.
"The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton." Washington Post and others.
June 2018.
45
gee whiz! that makes a lot of sense
how come the stable genius in the oval office didn't come up with it?
20
The Dow was up over 1100 today. Something sure defies logic.
3
About a third of all colds we get are caused by coronavirus. These viruses have been recognized since the 1960s. Stop acting like this is some resident evil level bio-threat.
I'm honestly starting to agree with Trump. Sure, the coronavirus is real, but the level of panic the media is creating seems a bit artificial (dare I say, hoax???).
So far, old, immunocompromised people have died, which is generally how all infectious disease works (big surprise!). Flu kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. Almost half a million. A cruise ship with 700 people was a perfect natural experiment and less than 1% died, which is the same mortality rate for the flu.
Now the NY Times is turning coronavirus into a class political warfare issue....
14
But even paid sick leave doesn't guarantee folks won't be out in public, spreading their germs . . . so instead they will be spreading their germs to total strangers rather than merely co-workers.
7
If it is true, as many qualified to opine on the matter seem to agree, that Donald Trump is irredeemably narcissistic, a pathological liar, and utterly incapable of empathy, we must conclude that he has been receiving sick pay for close to four years now. Meanwhile he stands in the way of examining and carrying out the kind of program you carefully describe.
An ironical twist to all this: Trump thinks he wears a crown, in the sense that he regards himself as King with all the privileges and rights attaching thereto. Now a many-crowned virus is haunting him and threatening us.
19
More and more it’s becoming clear: we are a backward nation.
Even before Trump.
What a disaster!
30
10 states and a number of cities DO have paid leave laws in place. It's a start. We have a long way to go. https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/resources/economic-justice/paid-sick-days/current-paid-sick-days-laws.pdf
8
Trump has never had big ideas, much less big ideas that benefit little people. Good public health policy and good policy would be the same thing in any country that valued all its citizens. Here we only value some citizens. Mostly corporate citizens.
When corporations suffer from their own stupidity and venality, then we'll have better policy. Not until then. As long as they can wring every ounce of blood from our poorest working poor and get away with it, they will.
16
The uber rich get richer, and the working class gets poorer, gets sick and dies. America is great, ain't she?
23
NY has a paid family sick leave program for all employers and employees. This should not be restricted to only when family is sick but be available when the employee themselves is sick. In addition, this should be expanded nationwide.
https://paidfamilyleave.ny.gov/
9
Don't expect the POTUS to embrace this sensible idea unless he think it will make him less likely to catch the "caronavirus" virus. Republicans hate a safety net.
11
Avoiding crowds will be the most effective way to slow the spread. No church. No bars. No restaurants. No theaters. No campaign rallies. No school. Etc. Closing the schools is likely to be pretty effective as our little TRUMP_1** super-spreaders won't spread it was fast if we close the schools for a month.
**aka COVID-19 which I renamed TRUMP_1 (TRUMP SUB 1) in honor of President Trump who's most significant act as president was the dismantling of the pandemic response team at the CDC. This is the first new virus since his signal accomplishment, thus the "1". It's unfortunate that he is incapable of leading. A leader would halt his campaign rallies.
17
It goes beyond paid sick leave---which is a good start as many do not have it. But what about those that do enjoy sick leave as a benefit but are too scared to take a few days off when ill?
I am sick of getting sick because some selfish dope is afraid the boss might get upset if they call in sick. Instead they come into work coughing, sneezing and infecting others.
Stop with the workaholic nonsense. You are performing at half speed, if that, and endangering others.
When you are sick...USE YOUR SICK DAYS!
19
You did nothing but impede Warren's presidential campaign, but you are not above stealing her ideas!
12
While you all opine - here's where to get the real latest on this beast...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8073543/TWO-strains-killer-coronavirus-spreading-study-claims.html
These beasts, to be precise...
2
Paid medical leave? I thought that the editorial board pushed for Biden all of the last month.
11
Yeah, cut taxes so more sick people go out and shop...
1
Good idea but it will not take place or become a reality under the best of circumstances until this corona pandemic is over and done and probably 250,000 Americans are dead. Our incompetent Congress is bought and paid for by the AMA and Big Pharma, so go ahead and die, they don't give a hoot. The best healthcare plan is to immigrant to a decent country.
11
While your suggestion has much merit. I wonder whether it would really make a difference.
The simple reality is that the American work culture is very macho-based. We laud the worker who, despite laying at death's door, nonetheless drags his butt to work.
Yes, this is encouraged by bosses. But it is also a matter of some kind of warped peer pressure. For many workers at all levels, staying home when sick is just being a "wuss".
It's almost guaranteed that even if there were mandatory paid sick leave days -- there would be a significant cohort of workers who would brag about how few, if any, such days they actually used.
Go figure!
14
So, all the comments I can see agree with you? What's with that?
Most companies that have paid sick leave only cover about 8 days.
You'd still be without pay for the rest of it.
I guess those of us lucky enough to have vacation time will be using it for the rest of the 14 to 21 days needed.
Even the Family Leave Act wouldn't help as there is no guarantee of pay, only that you won't lose your job.
Kind of gives "Staycation" a whole new meaning.
6
The best editorial you wrote in years! I guess of the candidates that are running for President only Mr. Sanders advocates for such benefits. I am not a supporter of Mr. Sanders. But being in healthcare at this time and this moment he gets my vote on this issue alone!
Americans deserve paid sick leave.
12
It this virus is everything that it's cracked up to be--contagious as heck, can be spread before symptoms show--the numbers, so far, speak for themselves. Put in context, there haven't been a lot of deaths, even in China, the epicenter. We've either been lucky or we've been panicking too much.
It would be good if the NYT and other media allowed a little time to see what happens before drawing conclusions like this. So far, events don't warrant the degree of hyperbole that's out there.
2
So - the entrepreneurial braintrust that is the editorial Algonquin round table decides that besides losing the money due to business conditions, private enterprise should be saddled with a 'tax' of paid sick leave.
Sigh - has anyone on this team ever met a payroll in their lives?
2
Well I had lots of sick leave. The culture of the workplace was not to use it as they needed us. As I used to say stick your hand in a bucket of water and pull it out and that's how much you be missed at work when you are gone. But so many thought they were indispensable. When I retired I got paid for several hundred hours of sick leave. I should have used it for mental health days. Might have worked longer--not.
4
We are not staying home if it costs us a portion of our paycheck.
1
Here in Australia all employees are entitled to 2 or three weeks sick leave a year, a provision specifically designed to keep sick workers away from the workplace. and the cost is borne by the community as a whole because effectively it is a levy on aggregate wages paid by employers.
Whilst taking a "sickie" (sick leave when you're not sick) occurs, it is not endemic as most workers are responsible and understand the costs and benefits.
5
Paid sick leave should not be added to vacation leave, that seems like a no brainer. A business planing ahead may want to separate the sick pay funds, placing them in an escrow/IRA type account specific to each employee, at the end of a career, end of time with employer any funds remaining goes with that employee. If this Country was coordinated on the issue the sick pay can follow the employee to the next job.
4
"Employers sometimes argue that sick leave policies encourage malingering." Malingering is what sick leave policies encourage? In what century did they say that? Good thing there are any labor laws at all or we'd still be shopping at the company store where our charges always were greater than our income.
6
Even the "good" jobs have replaced "sick days" with "PTO", which means you are giving up your vacation if you stay home sick. It wasn't a problem for me, I could telecommute, but not all jobs can be done remotely.
5
Re this topic from the UK Guardian today "the prime minister announced that statutory sick pay will be paid from the first day off work, not the fourth, to encourage people to self isolate."
4
First, the US did not permit testing. Now testing is possible for those who can afford up to 3000 dollars for a test that would keep you from working for two week if positive.
For someone with a job, with or without sick leave, the only reason to test is that your love of others is greater than your love of yourself and family. And you can afford it.
Free testing with support for those who test positive--and their families, and free medical care. Otherwise we will all get the virus and between 1.5 and 3.5 % of us will be lost.
Ball is in your hands Republicans.
11
Coronavirus is a national emergency and President Trump should declare it as such. But instead his administration has bungled their response (Trump acting like the addled, ignorant, and indifferent narcissist he is during an open meeting with health experts who repeatedly tried to get him to understand about vaccine development and testing.) Congress pushed back but only 8.3 billion has been allotted (equivalent to 1.1% of the Pentagon's annual budget.) Each state is guaranteed at least $4 million to help bump up prep & supplies – huh?! – $100 million is designated for community clinics that will be on the front lines. There is no provision for helping uninsured or under-insured Americans which could potentially doom them to medical bankruptcy or death. There are other provisions but nothing so practical either as paid sick leave suggested here. McConnell and Repubs made a big stink about the suggestion that a vaccine be made available for free to all Americans, worried as they were about free market profits and price controls. That's how much the Trumplican Party values your lives folks: not much at all. Now imagine a president Biden or Sanders and how they would respond to this crisis, instead of a dysfunctional & corrupt president whose current budget slashed funding to the NIH,CDC, and other agencies designed to respond to public health emergencies.
7
This argument should be obvious, but isn't, to most Republicans and many Democrats. What's not mentioned in the piece is that paid sick leave is the kind of common sense safety net that Sanders promotes, and called "socialism." When will committed capitalists see that it's impossible to keep us all from being woven together? Polluted air and water, viruses, below living wages, the uninsured, wars-- these end up becoming all of ours, and we cannot escape their ill-effects as they wind through society. But we could face and fix these issues, and then the benefits would spread, too, to everyone. Turning Sanders into the one to fear is completely backwards.
9
Most employees without paid sick leave work for small companies. If they are forced to offer paid sick leave, many will go out of business. Why doesn’t the government pick up the cost rather than devastate this sector of the economy? I’m sure companies don’t want sick people spreading germs around the work force. But many can’t afford to pay people to stay home
3
People will not skip work if missing work causes them to:
- Lose their job or car.
- Lose their house.
- Starve.
- Not be able to afford life saving medicine.
- Go bankrupt.
8
The government is worried about airline industry profits and are meeting with the airline executives. Americans without sick leave? Who?
8
Fed rate cut, nothing but trickle up economy.
4
If I don't show up to work, I'll lose my job. If I DO come to work, I may catch Covid19 and die (I'm immune challenged). Thanks, Trump, for eviscerating the CDC. Thanks, neoliberalism for ruining my generation's chances for a decent update to New Deal.
11
The wise EB pronounces a list of drastic measures, shutting down commerce, because there is a risk that a few more people will die than already do as as result of flu. Mandating paid sick time is easy to demand, but does the EB understand the direct negative impact that ultimately will have on the lowest paid workers, when companies off them to pay for the policies the Times demands. By the way how generous is the Times on this issue? Do employees have unlimited paid sick leave? That's the right thing to do.
Intelligent countries might consider free-flu and virus vaccinations but for many Americans that is socialism.
Republicans can justify the cost as keeping the workers productive.
Democrats can frame it as welfare (not in the American sense of the word but the international sense)
Who cares how much it costs you don't care about this when it comes to anything else.
Americans are weird.
3
Why are donnie, mike, and the GOPers sooooo riled up about doctors having admitting privileges for a medically safe procedure, but can't get their act together to prepare for and pay for the inevitable cases of COVID19, to test and treat in a way that doesn't bankrupt people?
really really really bad priorities in this administration
13
In Hungary, you're sick as long as you are, but you need a note from the doctor. And for those of us who are self-employed -- well, we get sick leave too. When we go to the doctor, she files the paperwork and I get paid an amount per day based on my income from the previous year.
9
This article is why so many people are voting for Bernie Sanders.
8
We are living in a third world country.
5
Every job - academic, military, private sector - I have ever had since the 1980's has had some form of paid sick leave. And in every work place, there was a subset of people who got sick nearly every Monday and Friday in July and August. Since most policies do not require a physician's note for one or two days off, employees know how to rig long weekends. People are selfish and abuse the system. Speaking of selfishness combined with stupidity, the first coronavirus-positive guy in NH even had paid sick leave to stay home from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, but still ditched his quarantine to mingle at a Tuck School of Business event. And it wasn't even a summer weekend!
1
Total hysteria
Why is no one reporting the data the cdc released on Tuesday?
The data showed that 99.5% of close contacts ( healthcare workers) with people sick with covid 19 did not get infected and almost 90% of household contacts did not get infected.
Think they will find an infected patient who contracted it from the man who walked through Grand Central ?
I think not.
Meanwhile, flu has killed 12000 and still counting in the USA.
You still are more likely to die from the flu this year ( by a wide margin)
Despite this reality, people still refuse to get vaccinated against the flu
God Bless the USA
2
Crowd size control is another way to avoid the virus.
It is inexcusable that Seattle had 55,000 at a garden show downtown I. A single building last week, and still plans to proceed with a comics convention that is anticipated to attract 100,000 people.
And what about sports? Why the pro soccer game in a Seattle stadium expected to have 50,000 fans?
Should even high school and college sports games be without crowds now in hot spots, like Seattle?
2
The late Joe Coulombe, Founder of Trader Joe's, had explained his effective strategy for retaining employees the longest.
One of the ways was to allot them each a certain amount of days off each year which they could take any way they wanted or needed.
Paying the money to keep employees is actually a savings, he said, because turnover is a huge expense as well as a headache.
Other businesses, he went on to say, don't seem to use his plan because they don't want to spend the money. But you have to. He did and made a profit as well!
Now that we face an expanding pandemic, when we want to keep people healthy, and we need sick people to stay home, this strategy would save lives.
Also useful would be for everyone to have medical insurance to keep them healthy, whether through Obamacare or Medicare or with their employer. It's foolish to think that the one section of the nation with health care won't be infected by the population without it.
Joe Biden hopes to expand Obamacare he helped pass and which Trump has been busy weakening. He and the GOP Senate upheld this president's who continually cuts health care and other benefits while they all enjoy great health benefits.
If they had to have the health benefits they vote for the rest of the country, we would all be a whole lot healthier!
Vote Smart. Vote Blue.
6
Another consideration in the US is the high proportion of uninsured and undocumented. The uninsured will be reluctant to show up for testing if they have symptoms because they can't afford to pay if the test is negative. If not already planned, testing, without regard to results, must be free. The undocumented have an additional fear- being arrested, separated from their families and deported. There should be an immediate moratorium on arrests, within health care systems at the minimum. These two categories may, without proper policies, become walking super-spreaders.
2
@Peter
Positive tests are almost meaningless in a free society like ours. In China, a positive test meant being sent to a warehouse-type hospital for supportive care. The vast majority of positive people will have nothing but common cold symptoms and will not seek testing anyway. The truly sick will seek care, just like with influenza each winter. Even with positive tests, Americans in several states have ignored quarantine restrictions, from trying to escape a military base to simply going to an academic social hour.
Watching the coronavirus briefing today, I was waiting for a reporter to ask who is going to pay for people to be treated or how people will be compensated if they are supposed to stay home as a result of this? Who is going to help the uninsured and the homeless and the underinsured in this country?
The cost of being hospitalized or treated will leave people with huge bills. How will people with no sick leave afford not to work? How is the government going to protect people from losing their jobs or going broke? It is already happening. Tourism is down, people don't want to eat at restaurants. Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers don't know if the people they are picking up are sick. My friend helps set up conventions in San Francisco. All his work over the next two weeks has been cancelled.
No one is going to stay home who doesn't have sick leave or go get checked, even if the test is free, if they know they might end up having huge medical bills as a result.
With no policies in place to address these issues, the virus won't be contained. Trump, Pence and the rest of their sycophant team downplaying what is happening with very little data from the US to back up their claims, should stop making misleading statements about how this is just like the flu and start implementing economic policies that could actually stop the spread of the virus.
8
In France, they are allowed 300 sick leave days in 3 years, and that hasn't stopped the spread of the disease over there, nor has it stopped the spread in Italy, where many of those stricken are retired older people. Social distancing is the way forward, but that means no plane travel, no eating out, no religious groups, no music, sports, theater, etc. Even though over 3000 people died in Wuhan, and Hubei province, the lockdown probably saved thousands from dying. I checked with a Chinese friend, who said they have sick leave in China. If you know anything about individual personalities, males tend not to stay home, when sick, as they are risk takers, even if they have sick leave, and a lot. According to my friend who did daycare for toddlers, most parents always bring sick children to the daycare, even though they are told not to. Humans aren't into rational thinking for the most part.
5
@MaryKayKlassen : I agree sick leave is not a 100% solution but...the French get 100 sick leave days PER YEAR on top of six weeks paid vacation? when do they ever WORK? that's over 3 months a year SICK LEAVE!
Maybe the French are absolutely honest....but I definitely know Americans who would all 100 days a year if they could and manage to work .... hardly at all, if allowed to do so.
I've heard lots of stuff about French benefits, but never "100 paid sick leave days a year" -- do you have any verification for this? it seems economically impossible to carry off!
1
It's amusing but actually very sad to read this list of common-sense steps that congress and the president SHOULD take, knowing there's not a chance they'll do anything of the sort. Got a pandemic? Their solution no doubt will be to give away more of our tax money to the wealthy.
7
I 've received advertisements for about thirty different kinds of Cryptocurrencies this week . I am 72 is cryptocurrency money we can use in heaven after we are placed in a crypt?
Speaking of which the markets surged today on a host of catastrophic news. Is Joe Biden being the presumptive nominee such good news to investors? Did anyone believe Bernie had a snowball's chance of achieving the presidency?
I thought I was being gaslighted but doesn't gaslighting require a little more subtlety?
3
It's not just sick leave by which our institutions show a singular disregard for the individual who is supposedly the centerpiece of our philosophical republic. Consider that employer abuses of employees, in violation of labor rules, has been estimated to amount to monetary value of 3/4 of all property crimes in the country. Consider the obstacles still presented by efforts to unionize, and establish a modicum of economic democracy as counterpoise to corporate 'personhood.' We are living in an oligarchy, with a Supreme Court majority far more solicitous of organized capital than the political rights of individuals. The founders would be mortified, and worried; whatever course the election takes, it is hardly surprising that Sanders' message resonates with so many.
5
You need to get out in the real world. Where possible, employers are cancelling non-critical travel and encouraging employees who can work from home to do so. Further, they also understand that sick employees coming to work will infect other employees and customers, and in the long run, will be more costly. Most are treating this situation seriously and taking appropriate action. We don't need yet another government mandated benefits foisted upon the backs of employers which will drive up their costs over the long term. Yet again, the left is looking to take advantage of a crisis in order to find new and exciting ways to regulate and spend other people's money.
7
@Mike C.
And what about the the companies that are not providing paid sick leave? You acknowledge that "most" companies are treating the situation seriously. And what about those that are not doing that?
8
I certainly favor paid sick leave. When I practiced neurology, however, I remember often working with a nasty cold, sniffling as I spoke to the patient and examined them; once, on call when I had pneumonia, I remember actually hallucinating at home that night. During the holidays, there were fewer people working and more patients had to be cared for. The group expected me to see patients, and patients expected to be seen. Small wonder I finally left medicine to the supermen who could work without sleep, eating, or good health. I often wonder how many mistakes they made when ill or fatigued, for hurry, lack of sleep, and interruptions are three leading factors in causing human error. There's got to be a better way.
9
@Mike S.
Medicine will get better when Medicare for All is introduced in a few decades. Then you will be able to see a doctor from 9 to 5 on Monday through Friday, barring any holidays of course. With low pay comes low responsibility. You worked sick because medicine is a profession of dedicated men and women who work all hours, but if it becomes just a part of government the attitude will become more like the welcoming arms of your local DMV.
This proposal is way too radical. That is why, we the moderates support Biden.
3
The vast over supply of immigrants both legal and illegal drives the wages and benefits for the lower class down. It is certainly possible that if businesses had difficulty getting the workers they need they would offer these workers higher wages and and benefits including paid leave.
4
Writing as one who founded a firm in the Silicon Valley in the early 1980's and rode ups and downs for twenty years, I know it's always possible to do more with less, challenging though it ay be. I'm convinced that much business travel should not be necessary in the internet age. Along the same line of thinking, one can imagine any resulting recession will be followed by robust growth.
2
If most non-elderly people are concurrently asymptomatic and contagious, then paid sick days are not going to slow the transmission.
The only thing that could possibly slow the transmission would be for every single person to be tested and every single positive result be quarantined at the expense of the state.
Since that isn't happening, better to accept the inevitability of the pandemic and devote resources to providing health care (again, at public expense if necessary) to all victims of the virus.
7
@Sam I Am
So far, some Americans have not even listened to quarantine orders when they have tested positive. So much for people thinking that selfishness and stupidity would not rule the day in our free society.
It would definitely be a help for a lot of people, too, if employers didn't try to high pressure employees who are attempting to call off to come into work when they are sick, even when they have available sick time.
Even the schools make it difficult because they are concerned about truancy. People who lack the ability to pay for appointments (especially for untreatable illnesses), or lack the ability to transport their children to the doctor (such as people without cars who rely on others, or who work during the day and can't afford to take time off) may just send their kids to school sick.
4
Just give folks guaranteed sick leave (old line dogs and other service folks know what I mean), and that little thing called National Health would be a bonus too since even if one is sick, many can't afford the charges, fees, and 'miscellaneous' our profit-gouging hospitals and physicians toss at a person for simply walking in the door.
Paid? Well, that's just icing on the cake. But if we had a national health database, then it would be easy for an employer to not only know who's gone to a physician, but easy to track whatever is going on.
Gosh, all those things those 'socialist' countries do.
4
This is a sane idea. The fact that we don't have this now is just another indicator of how we don't really value public health, or conceptualize public health as a value in American society. Just think what a different society we would have if a high value was placed on physical and mental health of all citizens. Instead, many immediately think of totalitarian societies that would make us do jumping jacks every morning or give up our Big Gulps.
6
We hear so much about American managerial prowess. Yet the management of a growing proportion of our companies can not figure out how to profitably provide the same goods and services that their European and Japanese counterparts do, while internalizing the costs of livable wages and benefits. And actively working against government programs which might alleviate the problems their workers face.
What is it about American business schools?
7
As a member of the gig economy, it's hard to take this seriously: "Congress can help by mandating that workers receive paid time off if they fall ill, or if they need to care for an ailing family member."
Those of us who don't have traditional "employers", who are members of the gig economy and are self-employed, don't get such options.
So basically, you want the over-taxed (read: the self-employment tax) and under-insured gig economy workers to take a huge hit while our traditionally-employed counterparts get *more* paid leave?
It time for the Times to get with the times and realize that we don't all have the traditional employer-employee relationship of the 20th century -- let alone the health insurance and PTO perks that often come with it.
12
American capitalism has no room for such "frills" as paid sick leave. Just ask National Freedom Medal winner Rush Limbaugh about the nanny state. The wealthy have aways lived above the mosquito line and sent the slaves to get malaria while working the fields. Nothing much has changed except the name of the disease.
13
Trying to create a bit of panic here? Or, is the real goal to push the 'sick people may go to work sick.' News flash! People do go to work sick; most that do have paid sick leave. More have sick leave than you'd think based on the NYTimes.
Also, why is it only now that we need to stay home when we're sick? How do you think the flu is passed around every winter? When people call in sick, do you think they all stay home self-quarantined?
3
The best way to stop the spread is to march on the White House, en masse, sneezing and coughing.
11
Yes, mandating paid sick leave would help a lot and, yes, many developed nations do that. That's because these other nations are liberal democracies. Sanders is a liberal democrat. However, liberal democracy (a.k.a. socialism) is not this year acceptable to enough people in the US, this year. Local definitions of words mean a lot. I'm certain Biden would support an effort to reduce the number of people forced to infect their workmates. This is one reason virtually no Republican would even consider voting for any Democrat. Independents and the few GOP Persuadables would be much more comfortable with Biden than Sanders. The alternative is four more years of Trump, and we know he would be unlikely to be distributing health benefits so "liberally" to the non-wealthy.
1
In addition to paid sick leave, urge people to wear gloves!
Think back to earlier times when sanitation, especially in cities, was rare. Women, especially, covered their hands to prevent contact with dirty surfaces.
61
@cheryl Within the restaurant industry, studies have shown gloves are quite a bit dirtier than hands as users fail to wash their hands as often as they do when they work with their hands and are less aware of the multiple objects being handled (ex: clean food vs unwashed produce vs sink handle vs cash, etc.).
26
@cheryl
The BBC had a photo of the Queen, wearing gloves, while awarding some type of medal to a British woman.
Everyone is taking precautions.
3
@elzocalo
Agree. People will not wash their gloved hands, but instead will accumulate hours of grime and germs on their gloves. They will then touch their faces with disgusting gloves. It is like the gross-factor of watching the deli person make your sandwich and work the cash register with the same "protective" gloves on.
26
I 100% agree with this statement "Congress can help by mandating that workers receive paid time off if they fall ill, or if they need to care for an ailing family member. Such a policy is necessary both to impede the spread of the virus and its economic harm. Roughly one-quarter of workers in the private sector — about 32 million people — are not entitled to any paid sick days." But I would go further and argue that ALL workers in ALL industries should be allowed 120 hours of quarantine time effective immediately in the event they fall ill, along with 80 hours of sick time. While we are at it, throw in 80 of vacation. PER YEAR. So many people come to work sick and infect others. It needs to stop. In some industries like food services, coming in ill is seen as "a badge of honor" when it should be shameful for a manager to demand such a thing from a person. I honestly think that OSHA should be involved, and that making workers come in sick or coercing them to work while not feeling well should be a blatant health violation that can be reported and stuck in your window at your restaurant. We need drastic change in the way people perceive working while ill. Maybe the coronavirus is what will bring it, or the next plague.
1
Is this an Occam’s razor occasion?
when presented with competing hypotheses that make the same predictions, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions
It further suggests entities should not be multiplied without necessity
In this case, the entities are people infected with Covid-19 and isolating them should preclude at least some of the multiplication
1
Bad enough we have corporate healthcare, now we're expecting corporations to cure this crisis?
Somehow, back in the 70s when I was growing up, I thought we'd a helluvalot smarter in 2020 than we apparently are.
2
If I were an employer and my worker called in and said, “I tested positive for COVID 19,” I would say “OH GOD, STAY HOME!”
Y’all have this knee-jerk “Decency is a betrayal of conservative principles” thing. Apparently being a sociopath is a badge of honor with the GOP.
3
It's beyond me why there isn't a requirement for at least a week of paid leave every year in the US. It's a drain on productivity to have sick people working and if you refuse to pay sick people then it's a drain on the economy. Every business ought to be able to afford the pittance that is a single week's wages for any of their employees. If you can't afford that and still do well, your business model just plain sucks.
204
Accept reality. The US is screwed. Our "me first" and "capitalism rules" structure of no-sick pay, no (or prohibitive) health insurance, and unsubsidized child care is about to come back and take a huge bite out of our economy.
12
it's not true we in Europe, at least in Italy, have unlimited sick time. but surely our sick time can last long, especially if you work in a company. then, if you work as a free lance it's a different matter. but I agree that sometimes people go to work because they don't want to 'waste' their sick paid days. and sometimes they don't feel like staying at home.
1
They rich get a rate cut. The rest of the people have to scrounge the best they can.
4
Congress could use the CDBG - Disaster Recovery mechanism prospectively and enable states to submit prevention-oriented action plans using evidence-based approaches overseen by state public health departments. There's latitude in how funding can be used and paid sick leave for hourly / low-income workers could be one approach states could choose.
2
Perhaps in addition to "PTO" (the advent of which eventually reduced what had been called "vacation" PLUS "sick leave"), maybe we need a special sort of time-off, not captured by "PTO" or national holidays.
I'm thinking "Apocalypse leave" for just this sort of thing...
These days, it seems all the more needed...
2
How about working from home during a pandemic (or a threat of a pandemic) as a right? Seems obvious. Many knowledge workers have been given VPN so that they can finish work at home that they did not complete during the workday. Let's use what we already have.
Don't just give companies tax cuts. Ask something in return. Tax credits for fewer commuters. Better for the climate as well.
2
@Marc : That would be a great start, but there's people (like doctors!) who need to be in-person. Ditto people who work in restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals, health clinics, and schools. Ditto letter carriers, sanitation workers, and some people at utilities (electric and water companies). Who will deliver our oil? Our UPS packages? Who will fix our broken-down cars? Operate our buses and subways and trains?
There's going to be a lot of people who simply *can't* work from home. And if you can WFH but have kids whose school is closed, then what?
2
@Marc
Who will make your coffee at Starbucks?
Who will fix your furnace/AC?
Who will drive your bus or subway?
Not everyone can "work" from home.
1
jobs that have the ability to be done remotely should be able to be done remotely. Companies need to wake up and stop forcing employees to come in unnecessarily. Besides reducing the risk of spreading disease it would cut down on C02 emissions and reduce traffic.
2
40 years of valuing capital over labor have taken a toll, both economically and on our very health. Working while sick is too often expected, with little downside to companies if the numbers who have to stay home are small. And tens of millions essentially have no choice but to work if they want to get paid and remain employed.
Depending on the course of COVID-19 here at home, there may be opportunities to run even more strongly on healthcare against an indifferent, if not outright incompetent, incumbent. Data noted in the editorial suggests a more humane and public health conscious policy might actually save money.
8
@Michael Tyndall : And sadly, Mr. Biden is totally for the status quo of ACA, which is a disaster. High premiums. High deductibles BY DESIGN to discourage use.
This whole play-it-safe strategy seems a recipe for failure.
3
@Rose
'And sadly, Mr. Biden is totally for the status quo of ACA, which is a disaster.'
Every politician's commitment to their campaign promises can be questioned, but at Biden's website* he states he plans to:
- expand coverage by adding a public option
- increase the value of tax credits to lower premiums and extend coverage to more working Americans
- expand coverage to low-income Americans currently not under Medicaid in Republican led states
- repeal the exception allowing drug corporations to avoid negotiating with Medicare over drug prices
- and expand access to contraception and protect women's right to choice.
*https://joebiden.com/healthcare/
3
In Trump world there is no "most-effective" strategy. There is only "his way" (or the highway). It is Katrina all over again.
6
Management of a public health problem like this would be so much easier with a single payer health system. Public health should never be at odds with private health.
7
Getting rid of Trump and his political hacks now running the government health agencies would really help.
7
Let me get this straight, you want business owners to make less money so that others don't get sick? I think it is safe to say that most job creators would say that's nonsense and that government should reimburse them for their losses if they institute this illegal taking of property. Freedom!! For business owners!!!
2
Nobody reimburses us ordinary people for our losses for things like this. And we have a lot less cushion-many of us have none at all.
6
@Keitr Years ago I took my kid to an IHOP after school, with the plan that he'd have a snack and do homework before basketball. Part way through the meal I realized the waitress who served us was very sick. I asked and she said she had a 103 degree fever but her boss wouldn't let her leave. A few days later, my son and I had 103 degree fevers, too. I never ever ever went to an IHOP anywhere again (and never will; nor will the rest of my family who all got sick). So, business owners and managers who don't let their workers take off time for illness are what is known as penny wise and pound foolish.
3
Thank you for pointing out something that should be obvious, but isn't even considered by most Americans. Consider the waitress or the delivery person, or many other types of gig worker. They make very little for their work and make their living on tips. But when these people are sick they cannot afford to stay home so they work, infecting others.
The chief reason they are forced to do this is that corporations have demonized unions which fight for benefits of all kinds for workers. Hence the term, wage slaves.
Most American workers are unaware of the benefits that are available to European workers. CEO's get salaries and bonuses in the millions while the gig workers can barely get by.
Corporations will pay for this when their workers transmit the corona virus and become truly unable to work after infecting the rest of the company and even the CEO will be infected.
Corporations are penny wise and pound foolish
11
Oh we are aware. That’s why we are so mad. But we have no power to change it. Moderate Dems sure won’t help us. I have zero faith Biden will do anything for us.
Prove me wrong, Joe.
7
@Smilodon7 : OMG, I LOVE this slogan: "Prove me wrong, Joe."
Joe is a disaster on healthcare and anything else that matters to the working class. And when I say working class, I mean people who are working to pay the bills, even if their actual income level puts them in the "middle class".
Unless you have employer-sponsored healthcare, middle-class income is not equivalent to a middle-class lifestyle. Many of us have good incomes on paper, but the $35K/year we spend on healthcare (premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and uncovered expenses) puts us in a totally different demographic.
4
Fat chance of getting paid sick leave with Republicans in charge. They couldn't care less about whether the average person lives, dies, or goes broke from staying home when they are ill. The sad truth is: Republicans don't care about anything until it happens to THEM. If a few high mucky mucks of the GOP get the virus and they or their loved ones die, then you'll see some action. But until then, as they say in New York, forget about it.
11
It is pretty amazing that U business does not give people time off for sickness, that government would have to insist on that. the common refrain, we cant afford that, is so silly. In fact we probably cannot afford to not do that. The spread of flu during winter season probably costs us all a lot more than a few sick days.
2
It’s always profit before the lives of people. That’s why the American has the unique distinction of being the most powerful and barbaric country on earth.
12
Obvious way #2: Require that all health plans cover doctor/hospital visits related to the coronavirus at no cost. You don't want people dying because they can't afford to get tested and treated.
3
That helps people who have health plans. But what about the rest?
3
@Smilodon7 : The government should pay for them. Obviously. But many more people have health insurance with such huge deductibles, they are afraid to seek medical care, because it may drive them into bankruptcy.
Paid sick leave would help. Universal health care would be better.
7
The article posits a nice hypothesis, but does not follow up with data that should be readily available. Do countries with more generous paid sick leave experience lower rates of disease? I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but eyeballing data from the WHO, it looks like the USA experienced about 20x more flu infections over the past year than Germany (https://www.who.int/influenza/gisrs_laboratory/flunet/charts/en/) with a population that is 4x larger. So, at first blush, it could be true. It would be slick if you could chase down some research that actually correlates the infection rates to sick leave.
1
Leadership means making difficult decisions, not just easy ones. We probably can't stop the virus but we can slow it down. Yes, sick days are critical. However, limiting the highest risk opportunities for broadly spreading infections will save lives. This might mean limiting events that draw crowds such as rallies, parades, etc. along with limiting density of travelers on public transportation to how many can be seated.
The potential disruption from too many people getting the coronavirus in any community all at once is what we should fear. Limiting spread will keep beds open in the ICUs and allow hospitals to remain staffed. If a couple hundred thousand people in a major city get sick over a few days, the business losses, social disruption and most important, the death rate, will be much greater than if those same infections are spread out over weeks.
2
This is a no-brainer. The single most important way to defeat this epidemic is to isolate carriers of the virus. The affected need to stay home (or be hospitalized) and there should be no obstacles to that. The Chinese have now turned a corner on this disease by strict quarantine.
And frankly, I don't see the point of stimulus now. As Mr. Powell said, "“A rate cut will not reduce the rate of infection. It won’t fix a broken supply chain. We get that." The economy will recover when we beat this thing, not before.
11
Paid sick leave would help the economy a lot. For many of us, the paychecks stop when we get sick.
It is very curious how on one hand the NYT editorial board and opinion writers have been decidedly biased against the progressive candidates but now calls for a policy that socialists have implemented in other countries and that progressives and socialists have long been calling for here.
Yes, federal, state, and local governments should be instituting such policies.
And yes, the NYT editorial board and opinion writers should start supporting the candidates who are advocating for such common sense policies -- even if the trumpers label them "socialist" and therefore "bad".
20
I agree with the idea of sick pay provisions. However, part of the issue with coronavirus is that people will be contagious before they have symptoms, and indeed many infected will have only mild symptoms (therefore wouldn't feel the need to stay home). They will be the real spreaders of the disease: the infected but feeling mostly ok, so going about their daily lives.
2
If they could stay home without risking their job or income, I think many would.
3
Fifty-seven million people belong to America's gig economy, and if we don't go to work, we don't get paid. That's more than enough people to spread the Coronavirus. We pack your groceries, prepare your food, wash your dishes, clean your homes, deliver your pizzas, babysit your kids. We can't work from home, and can't afford not to work. Paid sick leave might keep some people from losing their homes over unpaid bills, but it isn't going to stop the virus.
13
One way to help handle this would be to put out in large public places all our inflatable hospitals and FEMA and military portable housing that the military and FEMA have both for quarantine and for treatment.
There's sick leave on paper, and then there is sick leave you are socially permitted to use. My company has 10 sick days per year, that you can roll over to accumulate up to 50 days. But yesterday, when a very reliable, mid-level member of our team called in sick and offered to call into an important meeting remotely, the head of our department had a mini-meltdown and angrily proclaimed "I'm really angry with [sick coworker]! Maybe we need to find someone else!" to me and another more junior staffer. And this in a city where we've had a few positive diagnoses of the virus. What message does that send?
22
Thank you. I have been arguing for the past week that we need to get in front of this thing, not reactive. We need to close the schools, cancel large events and encourage people to stay home if they can. If we can do that for 2 - 3 weeks, the virus won't be able to spread.
8
"Most developed nations require employers to provide some form of paid sick leave, and the United States should do so, too."
Well, the US under Trump is hardly a developed nation any more. It might have the mightiest military of all, yet, when it comes to women's right, gun-control, healthcare at over twice the amount per capita, maternity leave, longevity, clean air and water, etc., etc., this country is marched back by force to the pre-Enlightenment era.
14
Mandated paid sick leave will also save lives, in general. Less workers ill with flu = less people with flu every year = less deaths from flu.
The cost to society would be worth the cost of a tax credit to implement it.
8
Another obvious way to avoid these outbreaks that nobody wants to talk about: Stop eating animals.
All these epidemics (SARS, MERS, swine flue, H1N1, ebola, etc.) can be directly linked to animal consumption. In industrialised nations we have laid the foundation for a new health crisis in the form of antibiotic resistant bugs, due to the rampant use of antibiotics in animal agriculture. This issue has actually been covered right here in the New York Times. We need to stop 'fighting' these symptoms and go straight to the source of the problem.
There is a serious ethical issue in killing trillions of land and marine animal every year for human consumption. But it goes beyond that. Animal agriculture has devastating impacts on the environment and climate, on human health, and on low-income communities. The information is right under our noses and it would serve us well to act on it.
4
One thing is sure- our dysfunctional healthcare system will make us sicker than people living in all other developed countries- 28 million without health insurance, millions of others with such high deductibles that they avoid going to a doctor. Having health insurance yourself won’t help if the people who serve your food, care for your child, take care of your elderly relative, or drive your ride-share, just to name a few hourly workers, can’t afford to stay home or seek medical care.
8
I stayed home for four days because I didn’t feel well, but I’m retired, so it was easy. Today I went to the grocery store and a woman with a young child was walking around coughing without covering her mouth or into her elbow. As I reached for something, she coughed on me. Please people, be responsible! Diseases spread because some people aren’t being careful.
12
Absolutely right. And the one thing these here United States is unlikely to do anytime soon.
We are an allegedly "advanced" nation that won't give paid leave for women to have a kid. The vast majority of us are lucky to get 2 weeks of vacation a year, while all other first world nations give at least 4- by law.
How many of us must decide if we will take Columbus Day or MLK Day as a holiday?
If the virus gets bad enough that alot of us must stay home,
we'll be on our own financially.
11
So, essentially Trump wants to take advantage of a potential health crisis to give his real base, aka the 1%, yet more benefits?
Elections have consequences...
12
Trump doesn't care about people dying, only about the stock market which is the only thing that will get him re-elected.
15
And do you think Joe Biden will do something about it?
Only Warren has the right ideas. Today's political America is way backwards and we all pay for the backwardness.
3
Employer's Mantra: Better a thousand show up sick and wreck our productivity than allow one person to stay home and play hoocky. Got to set an example, after all.
13
Why on earth are Americans being charged for the testing?
19
@BBB
We have private health insurance, so the pattern is all private responsibility.
Of course, it means those without insurance can't pay, and it means those with high ($5000 is common) deductibles will have to pay.
And, Public Radio is reporting that many carriers won't pay for the test because its not on their "approved list of tests"- not unusual since the test did not exist until a few months ago.
We are an exceptional nation. We do the opposite of others.
21
What a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, nothing like that will ever get through a Republican led congress because it actually helps working people and we can't have any of that. No worries though. The Republicans have a once size fits all remedy that works in every situation. Much as the English try to cure every malady with a cup tea, the GOP solution for every problem is to cut either taxes or interest rates. It doesn't matter whether a tax or interest rate cut actually solves the problem or not. It's the only thing they know how to do. Virus pandemic? Interest rate cut. Head chopped off? Here's a tax cut. House burned down? Interest rate cut. Run over by a truck? Tax and interest rate cut. If a tax or interest rate cut doesn't fix the problem, the Greedy Old Plutocrats are fresh out of ideas, sit on their hands and do what they always do; blame the Democrats.
18
Any governmental proposal that could make the lives of wage laborers easier is usually met with resistance by the owners of the "means of production." Those owners call such proposals many things---redistribution of wealth; class warfare; welfare; the "nanny state"; enabling laziness; reducing self-sufficiency; feeding at the public trough . . . .
The G.O.P. has generally viewed these measures as zero sum games. Any loss to the wealthy is a loss. Period.
The party of the Roosevelts, which became the modern Democratic party, has generally believed that governmental help is not a loss, but a benefit for all of society. When the wage laborers get a better deal, the whole economy grows, societies have fewer problems. (Even evil Henry Ford believed that if he better paid his employees, he would have more customers to buy his cars.)
The impulse to be greedy, offset by governmental actions, has generally yielded better results for a society than leaving too much power in the hands of the wealthy and greedy.
We've all heard from the wealthy, "I know better than the government about what to with my money, what charities I will support . . . ." The wealthy may know lots about how they earned their money, but that knowledge does not translate to a common good, arrived at through a republic that represents everyone.
A republican form of democracy requires patience and work. May the U.S. continue to have the strength to so do.
3
Too bad the Federal Government and so many state governments are allergic to actually helping workers. As an African American, I often wonder if the legacy of slavery insinuated itself so deeply into the management culture of the USA that at some level every low wage workers isn’t treated like a slave at some level? What I mean is that America has a management culture that never truly acknowledges the humanity of its low wage, low skill employees. Low wage workers are never seen as tired, stressed, or sick. They are always seen as lazy, dishonest, or slackers. America certainly stands alone in this attitude compared to other developed economies. The counterpart of the distrust of workers is the pampering of capital. The disconnect between the negative attitude towards workers and the appeasement of business is at the heart of the critique of American social structure made by Bernie Sanders and his supporters. Regardless of politics, a government that can not grasp the need to aid workers in the face of a possible pandemic while reflexively cutting the prime interest is government that is bound to end exacerbating any slowdown that will result from covid 19.
27
The one silver lining to the coronavirus epidemic is that it might be the thing to wake Americans up to the need for universal affordable healthcare and mandatory paid sick leave. Maybe they'll figure it out when their vulnerable mom in a nursing home succumbs to an illness that was brought into the facility by a low-income worker with no paid sick leave and no insurance to pay for testing. Maybe they'll figure it out when their coworker who's taking an immunosuppressant is gravely ill, or their nephew with cancer falls victim. Unfortunately, just like with climate change, Americans tend not to wake up until it hits them personally.
23
This is when we see the need for healthcare for all. When 30M people are not insured, you see more diseases and illnesses in that population which easily spread to those that are insured.
As mentioned in the article, a lot of these people are in the service industries which can easily spread germs.
5
Good luck finding an employer who will grant sick leave for a parent needing to stay home with a sick child. I entered the work force in 1984. It was Godless.
6
The most obvious thing the NY Times Editorial Board could do to fight the coronavirus is not stoke panic about a mild cold virus, but why put the wellbeing of the country above some cheap political shots and clickbait?
2
@C
If it's not too much trouble, could you please post a link to your research on this "mild cold virus?" Which peer-reviewed journal was your work published in?
Thanks in advance.
12
@C
A "mild cold virus" that has a 3.4% chance of killing you.
11
One other idea that just might help fight the coronavirus: NYT could maybe stop publishing fear-mongering content about it every 15 minutes like it is the end of the world. Your editorial board has some whip smart people on it--none of which are qualified to publish a *useful* opinion about coronavirus. Please stop muddling the public.
Strangely, the media had no trouble putting the coronavirus stories aside to do live-streaming commentary and vote totals of a primary presidential "contest" that represented less than half of the country.
3
@Meagatron
What is the difference between using astericks around a word and using double quotation marks?
This is new to me.
2
@Chris - Asterisks convey emphasis; I could use all uppercase instead, but try to avoid doing that when other folks might interpret it as text-based yelling. Double quotation marks mean exactly what you think they do--quoting someone.
2
American policy is often crafted to prevent abuse of the system. Sick leave is a benefit with strict guidelines for its' use... because the underlying belief is that employees will invariably use it like vacation time and will abuse the system. Paranoia.
But little consideration is paid to the impact upon productivity when sick people need to come to work, and today, the impact sick people have upon society in general.
I'm in agreement with this editorial appeal - The government needs to step in a mandate that sick people stay home. It's probably the most efficient public "spend" to help combat spread of the disease and to encourage good behavior. But managements narrow focus on productivity, and the nostalgic belief that you need to "tuff it out" when you're ill all sit as barriers to embracing this necessary and pragmatic approach to keeping us all safe.
3
No sick leave, unaffordable health insurance, and outrageously expensive health care costs. The economic system the way it is set up is it's own worst enemy, set up to fail during a pandemic, second only to the GOP Trump Administration that has fired all the highly trained specialists who used to work in formerly trusted institutions like the CDC, the EPA, the .......what's the third one? The Energy Department!
4
States can also do this for their own populations and workforces, like New York, California, Washington, and Oregon. If they need to make up the revenue they can institute higher sales taxes, taxes on high private school tuitions, higher income taxes, and the like.
5
@Snowball
And then all the companies and jobs go to Red states where they don't have such things.
Hence, the reason why such a law need be national.
2
This is exactly the argument I tried to make to Brookdale Senior Living, where my 95-year-old mother lives. Management says sick workers must stay home, but they have little paid sick leave. So many of these caregivers are living paycheck to paycheck. They can’t afford to self-quarantine. Without paid sick time, compliance goes right out the window.
18
Of the people who contribute to the NYTimes, how many are eligible for paid sick leave? In a gig economy, nobody gets paid sick leave. I know I don't, neither does my wife.
2
I also get almost none. But let’s keep in mind that those at the top of the economic food chain benefit when our reaction to this is “hey, I don’t have that, why should you?” rather than “hey, these other employers offer this benefit, mine needs to step up and do that too” or even better “hey, why are we the only large modern society without universal healthcare?”
2
@Peter
That's why the editorial is calling for such.
Yet people here are too selfish to self-quarantine, paid or not.
Back from Japan or Italy recently? Oh, I'll just go out to a restaurant, the grocery store, catch a play. Oh, I'll be fine. If I do get it - which I won't - it's like the flu, plus the Spring weather will stomp it out. Oh you know, it's already here. That guy over there didn't stay home, so it doesn't matter if I do.
Thanks for the paid sick leave vacation.
3
Because China, Iran and Italy have the best government plans while having the most sick people? 99.99999% of sick people are not pandemic-related, so create a plan that 99.99999% of the time will force employers to pay for work not done to account for a 0.0001% event?
If the government wants to create a paid leave plan where workers pay for insurance premiums to cover sickness, that's fine, as long as paid for by taxes. Just don't make employers do the job of government, infecting the lifeblood of our economic greatness with the "high performing" federal government we have today.
The Gov't should lead the nation on how employees can deal with this virus without going bankrupt. What is, for example, the Colorado Gov't doing to help employees work from home? There are call centers within this government and they should already be working from home....and they are not!! Because the managers are still living in the 1940's. The NYT and other responsible news outlets need to ask the question...why aren't these call centers supporting at-home workers?
@J. G. Smith :
Shrink government. Get government out of all healthcare, including CDC.
Where in the Constitution does it say the US should have a CDC?
@gratis
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare..."
Note the "promote the general welfare."
16
@gratis
Sure. Tell us how a nation responds to a pandemic without an organization to deal with it.
2
I love how liberals think businesses just have money lying all over the place and can afford to pay staff not to work. They think every company has cash like Amazon and don’t realize that most companies go under if they could not produce products or services but still have to pay everyone for even two weeks.
2
@Roy :
And just because every industrialized country in the world does it, it does not mean America, the Richest Country in the World can do it. Countries like Norway has huge National Surpluses, while the US is in debt. The US just cannot afford such things as health for the people. Corporate profits MUST come ahead of human lives. This is what MAGA is all about and this is why Trump will win.
8
@Roy Paid sick leave should be part of the employee benefits package. Budgets are created by management, and there's no excuse for punishing the workforce for being human. People get sick. Pay them.
5
@Roy
I love how conservatives think that workers should bear all the burdens and costs of this society. How they should work for lousy wages that don't keep up with inflation. How they should bear a substantial part of paying for their own benefits. How they should "eat" any time they spend away from work for their own, or a family members, illness.
4
From the other side of the planet. Sick leave - As a comparison, here how it's work in Norway:
All people that reside legally in Norway for more than 1 year are automatically members of the national insurance scheme, and it applies from your first day in Norway. Once associated to the social security plan, you get rights to benefits such as sickness benefits, work assessment allowance pensions etc.
As a rule, to receive sick leave, we need to have been employed by the same employer at least 4 weeks before taking out a sick leave. We have the right to a maximum of 52 weeks sick leave in Norway, and the employer is obliged to pay sick pay for the first 16 calendar days (employer’s period). After that, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service (NAV) will take over the responsibility and pay sickness benefits, which is up to p.t. NOK 599,148 (approx. USD 64,500 - today USD 1 = NOK 9.30).
Normally, the leave is 100% of our (most of us) gross income, calculated of the average of the last 4 weeks before the leave.
If we have been on sick leave for 1 year, the right to sickness benefits ends. The we must apply for other benefits if we cannot return to full-time work after this date. You may be entitled to a disability pension from the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund and possibly a work assessment allowance from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service.
Read more from "NHO" (The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise): https://www.nho.no/en/english/articles/basic-labour-law/
14
@Xaronx
Thank you. Few Americans have any idea as to how people in other first world nations live. Its one of the many reasons we tolerate the way we live.
5
OSHA mandates safety measures for workers...It should be no surprise that this is another type of safety for the workforce.
4
New York State could and should immediately let employers use their
contributions to their unemployment
insurance fund for any employee who
needs to self quarantine for 14 days
or more. We do not need the Trump administration, which will do nothing, to
attack this problem right now.
3
@Joe Barron :
Companies should have sick leave policies in place, regardless of what any state does or does not do.
But, American Exceptionalism, money is worth more than people.
1
That, yes, plus a guarantee that anyone who incurs any cost over this will be backed 100% by the government.
Or, alternatively, we can stay predatory-capitalist -- because god knows having universal health care would be a Stalinist crime even though it would help now -- and have a worse epidemic than we might have had.
Democrats: "I go with worse epidemic! Resistance!"
2
You show up to be tested for COVID-19 when you think you might be sick, and you get a $3,000 bill, and then you lose your job because you didn't have any sick days. THIS is how we're going to stop this disease?
24
SICK LEAVE? More liberal job killing nonsense.
BTW, does anyone notice that European workers equal or exceed the production of American workers, even with the 4 week paid vacation that the government inflicts on every business?
6
In hot spots like Seattle, the Governor is worrying about many businesses becoming financially unviable if a quarter of workforce or more becomes ill and in isolation.
So spread to more people is number one issue. It is estimated by Seattle microbiologists that 500-600 are already infected in that region.
1
When I was working in Europe I asked the people I worked with how much sick time they got. They had no idea what I was talking about. "When you are sick, you stay home. There are no limits, but you have to get a doctor's note." That, plus the 4 weeks paid vacation to every worker, mandated by law to every business.
Mommy governments are just terrible. So socialist.
500
@gratis that's not quite true, there are time limits when someone is sick. In Germany, for example, the employer continues to pay the full salary for up to 6 weeks. That's generous, but not unlimited.
29
@Marc True, but the "Krankenkassen" continue to pay patients up to 70 percent of their salary (up to a certain limit of about 4,500 euros) for about 72 weeks.
72 weeks! Can you imagine that? In the U.S., anyone who is sick for 72 weeks has long since been fired, tossed out of their health insurance, and is now applying for bankruptcy.
We have it very good here, no doubt about it.
93
@gratis 4 weeks paid vacation? I get 5 (because I work for a company with less than 100 employees and no union) and most workers in Germany get 6! Americans just don't know what they are missing out on.
The horrors of (democratic) socialism indeed...
139
Adopting an emergency measure to permit using unemployment benefits for covid-19 quarantine seems less burdensome and shares the cost among all of US.
4
Speaking as an MPH/MD the White House needs to take program/response control early e.g. paid sick leave, banning mass events (next week's 100,000 Comic-con in Seattle) now, paying for all uninsured corona health care, etc. This may cut economic activity but it will increase security and has potential to stem the epidemic (and help markets). The thing about epidemics (as we saw with lab tests) is if the moves are not done early, they may have vanishing little impact. The initial incubation period is relatively silent, but not a time for complacency. Epidemics overwhelm the philosophy of minimalist government.
1
Paid sick leave is not the best treatment for the corona virus.
Universal health care is.
And when employers save the costs of employee health benefits, they can raise wages.
It is unfortunate that the Editorial Board sticks with a very profitable insurance model, and "health care" only as a benefit provided by an employer.
6
@Occupy Government :
Universal Health care does not matter a whit when. one's colleagues come to work as sick as can be, a practice management encourages.
6
Don't hold your breath waiting for sick leave for these workers. Take a look at the policies and practices of companies like WalMart and Amazon for their workers. These companies know how to lobby Congress to get their way.
6
Yes but this must apply to the vast numbers of hourly workers at every segment of the economic ladder. We all don’t get any benefits, no raises, no health insurance, no vacation... this is the fallout of 2008 and the subsequent “recovery.” Anything less is insufficient and will compromise public health. Only a Federal Mandate for every employer will make a difference.
1
Way overdue and not only a good idea - it should be the law.
Yes, there are potential problems. As an independent contractor, I am not "entitled" to sick days. My "wage" is supposed to include that as well as my own provision for vacation days, health and "unemployment" insurance and workers compensation should something happen to my employer or his business.
Yes, there are those who will take advantage. Everyone needs a "mental health day" once in a while, but requiring a doctor's note is a check on widespread abuse. That assumes, of course, Medicare for All or other programs that cover workers without bankrupting them.
Not everyone can work from home and, in a workforce that increasingly works from paycheck to paycheck, society as a whole needs protection from those whose judgment is not sound enough to realize that they endanger the rest of us when they come to work sick.
1
@Chevy :
LAW? Job killing Federal regulation compromising the profits of the rulers of the USA, corporations. Federal Laws taking away the Freedom of workers to come to work as sick as can be to infect their fellow workers. Too socialist.
2
How about national health care for all the people? Not only would this be the best treatment policy for those afflicted but it also functions as an insurance policy for the health of the US economy.
If a list were made by health care professionals of things to do first to protect our population from the Coronavirus paid sick leave might be somewhere on the list,but a broadly based , well funded, available to all (the big ALL , the real ALL) health care system would be first. We already have the best health care system in the world available to those few that can afford it, but a pandemic makes very obvious the need to provide health services effectively to the poor if for no other reason than to keep the wealthy healthy.
Mitch McConnell,a mule with blinders, plows on to uproot the affordable Care act "root and branch". The Supreme
Court awaits Trump's permission to release a perhaps definitive 'death of Obamacare' decision until after the November election. This is a problem one election cannot fix, although it is a problem one election brought to a head like a boil.
2
I have an additional suggestion. I get paid sick time, but anything over 2 days requires a doctor’s note. So I get a moderate case of the flu or some other virus and I decide to stay home to protect the people around me. By the end of Day 2 I still have a fever, so it looks like there will be a Day 3. For which I will need a trip to the doctor’s office to get the all important note. The doctor can do nothing for my virus, it just has to run its course. So dilemma - do I return to work and spread my germs around there, or do I go to the Doctors office and spread germs there, probably to sicker people who have conditions that make them more vulnerable to a viral illness?
End the Dr’s note! Particularly during cold and flu season. It puts sick people in public amongst vulnerable individuals for no good reason, and face it, if I’m really trying to pull a scam I can certainly fool a busy doctor.
10
Have your doc email the note, after an email or phone consultation. (Temperature results, coughing, aches, etc. relevant)
1
America believes in vulture capitalism and the destruction of our workforce. We want to ensure that shareholders make money and the CEO's have more money to put into offshore accounts.
Politicians refuse to think long term and the public has no right to have health coverage. so we are in this mess because always looking for cheaper profits have destroyed the critical thinking skills of leaders.
We have no one to blame but ourselves and thinking that pr marketing is actually reality. It isn't, we need to become a critical thinking country again and our CEO's need to begin thinking about America vs their bank accounts.
No preparedness at all in this country by our politicians and our CEO's.
4
AND: support for small businesses that need to stop work. Moreover support for people who need to quarantine in their homes.
1
Trump's chief characteristic is an inability to learn anything. His minions share that trait. We will all suffer as a result until that and the GOP are voted out or the virus takes these old men.
8
"But targeted policies — like sick days — are likely to remain the most effective form of response."
Oh, NY Times? Do publish your own paid sick leave policies for ALL your employees, here and abroad, from clerical to journalists to your well-paid executives, including your flexibility on those leave policies under current conditions. We're waiting.
11
@KatBark
The policies of the NY Times have nothing to do with what the national policy should be to prevent large-scale outbreaks of disease.
What about the gig economy? What about health care? Sorry this is just another band aid. Because of selfish, stupid, and/or fearful voters we're not getting it, but what we need is fundamental structural change.
6
Warren Buffett is fond of saying: "it's when the tide goes out that you find out who's been swimming without their trunks." Our hyper-leveraged, winner-take-all, devil-take-the-hindmost system shows its vulnerabilities in a crisis such as the one we are facing.
7
Paid sick leave, free testing and free medical care.
6
Please make this editorial broadly available without payment. You need some mechanism to get critical discussions like this out from behind your paywall.
10
The dream of the Liberals.
Get paid to stay hone and do nothing.
Good luck with that.
4
@AutumnLeaf :
Yeah. Just like living wages.
Maybe we need to start naming names. Who isn't paying you sick leave when you are sick?
Liberals always ignore the absurdity of paying people for not working whether it’s in the form of sick days, paid vacation or retirement.
3
The NYTimes commentary completely ignores the real issues in favor of a misguided attempt to shoehorn a social change agenda. First, the reason this virus is spreading not because identified ill people are in the workforce. SARs was stopped because only symptomatic people spread the virus. The fundamental issue is that for up to two weeks and potentially longer, asymptomatic people are viral spreaders infecting multiple other people. They don't know they are sick.
The gov has a Sophie's choice - quarantine people the way the Chinese have but destroy the economy or let people move unencumbered and risk panic and rapid viral spread. Business is slowing down and retreating at a very rapid pace because of fear of viral spread, canceling travel, eliminating hiring, slowing purchasing. There is an escalating risk of a "run on the economy" with cascading damage. We saw this with SARs in China and now with Corona. People stopped congregating, stopped going to retail, restaurant, restaurants, stopped going to factories, offices, etc.
This can be stopped by 1) Providing a large scale ($T) forgivable loan program that acts like hurricain insurance. Any business that agrees not to fire workers can take out a forgivable loan. The loan is forgivable IF it can be established (sometime post crisis) that damage to the business was based on the Coronavirus. This will keep people employed AND maintain the industrial infrastructure of the country
Now and then the NYT gets it correct! Congratulations!
1
why is it we expect employers to furnish medical benefits? trash that expectation and free the workplace of this costly overhead expense.
employers can then compete for employees if they wish by developing and offering other attractive job benefits.
continued pressure to create a public solution will hopefully succeed sooner rather than later.
2
One of the benefits I get as a public school teacher is sick leave that accumulates if I don't use it. Practically, however, it is difficult to get substitutes. So, if I"m absent, there is a good chance that my class will be split up among other classes, which is a huge hassle for everyone. That's a big disincentive to staying home unless I am really quite sick.
As for the fear that paid sick leave will lead to "malingering".... our society would probably be much better off if we all occasionally took a (paid) mental health day to restore our body and soul when life just got too overwhelming. I bet productivity would rise, too.
6
Paid sick leave would likely help. Most employees already have it; a good case can be made that all should. Just remember that there are downsides: some will abuse such policies, and they will raise the costs of hiring employees. Other employees will see their own wages drop a bit, and perhaps there will be fewer jobs. There really is no free lunch.
The best treatment for the corona virus is treatment for the corona virus: effective drugs and vaccines. These are being developed by a coalition of the government, academic institutions, and, importantly, drug companies. It will take all hands on deck to develop vaccines and therapies.
Yesterday, the Times prominently printed an op-ed suggesting that corporate greed was such that "Big Pharma May Pose an Obstacle to Vaccine Development." This is an outrageous falsehood, and publishing the editorial was counterproductive. Big pharma has the resources to develop, test, and mass produce drugs and vaccines, and we must work with them so they can accomplish this essential mission.
If there is a hindrance to drug development, it is American trial lawyers, who file multiple lawsuits which threaten to bankrupt many pharmaceutical companies. Inappropriate litigation threatened to stop vaccine production in the US during the 1970's, and only an 11th hour no-fault liability law allowed vaccine production in the US to continue. Once again, today, the nation would greatly benefit from federal tort reform legislation.
1
Bernie has centered paid sick leave as part of his Fight for Working Families agenda. Paid sick leave sits on this platform alongside paid family leave, expanded paid maternity/paternity leave, paid medical leave, paid vacation, a $15 federal minimum wage, universal childcare and pre-K, closing the wage gap through the Paycheck Fairness act, and making it easier for workers to join unions through the Workplace Democracy Act. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider voting for the candidate that will actually fight to make this worker-focused agenda happen.
5
It's one thing to have paid sick leave and another to actually take it. Not showing up for work even if you're at death's door, in order to prove you're a loyal corporate widget, is the American way. It's even worse when your boss sets the example by showing up sick, probably because her boss showed up sick. Ironically, since most office workers know that 95% of what they do is meaningless rubbish, they must still make it appear that only they are qualified to do it.
8
It probably wouldn’t be too expensive for the federal government to subsidize paid sick leave during this epidemic because the employees and gig workers who would benefit don’t get paid that much anyway.
2
Not only will tests not be free, but Republicans are right now blocking emergency funds for testing and treatment because they refuse to require that people who get federal funds charge a "fair and reasonable price." In other words, Republicans support price-gouging.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/03/coronavirus-emergency-bill-119729
4
Medicare for All. Vote Sanders.
5
Curious. What are the Time's own "sick leave" benefits. Who enjoys what, and for how long?
5
@Robert Sawyer
According to a Times article written 2 days ago by Ben Smith, the starting salary for a Times writer is $104,600, and I'm sure the benefits are commensurate with that lofty remuneration. However, for galley slaves, it's anybody's guess.
3
Gee, it's SUCH a great idea ... that you gotta wonder WHY it was NEVER even mentioned in the 2010 tax reform bill known as "Obamacare".
It literally never came up for discussion, Obama preferring instead to punt on Single Payer and a measly Public Option and instead go full-bore on the pure evil that was The Individual Mandate (i.e., forcing people to buy a product they could not afford from a huge corporation, and with high deductibles so they could never USE said product).
IMAGINE if instead of the Individual Mandate....the ACA had included a provision to mandate SICK LEAVE for every worker!!!!
We would probably not be quaking in terror right now from the coronavirus.
4
Please. If you think for one moment that business owners from the small to the multi-national fortune 500s would agree to this, you are dreaming. They don't care about their workers. They don't care about people. It's all about money. Always, always, always.
Nothing gets in the way of the almighty dollar, not even a deadly pandemic.
3
@PubliusMaximus, That is why sick pay needs to be a federal government reimbursed benefit like it is in enlightened capitalist countries.
We're all one MetroNorth ride away from catching the CoronaVirus from someone who has no safety net and must go to work when they're sick. Frightening.
10
Here is Nice Franch they are not panicking. No mad runs on TP in the stores. No worry about a test if you need one. No worries about bankruptcy from medical bills. Just dial #15 on your phone and a SAMU ambulance will be by to give you care. And, you know you will have a job when you get out of the hospital.
If France can do it, we CAN do it, can't we? Come November, let's vote these GOP, that place money ahead of health, out of office!
11
We killed Unions because "right to work" sounded right and promised freedom! Out went all the collectively bargained rights and worker protections! Jobs without rights and protections are slave labor with wages just enough for survival!
12
Paid sick leave is a no-brainer, corona-virus or not. A sick employee endangers others, especially when sick with the flu or other infectious illness. Their lower productivity impedes their colleagues' work. Their lowered morale spreads. And the knowledge that their employer is a narrow-minded skinflint reduces loyalty.
Paid sick leave hastens recovery, thus reducing the time of lowered productivity. It prevents escalation of illness into chronic conditions or worse, and thus over time reduces health-care claims. It signals that the employer has their employees' backs, thus encouraging loyalty.
Paid sick leave is one of the cheapest benefits an employer can offer.
3
Survival of the fittest
I lost paid sick leave forty years ago. I used to get two weeks sick and two weeks vacation. You could accumulate sick time and save it for a major illness. They took away one week and called it personal time. Productivity increased and the world was good.
In a era when having told someone they have nice hair cut forty years ago can make you lose your job and get ostracized from everything one holds dear I say this in the spirit of the times. Pardon my grammar but Ain't you forty years too late?
1
I guarantee this comment won’t make it in. Who is the candidate that is for workers paid sick leave? Sanders.
5
What a socialist concept. If only there were a presidential candidate that the Times could endorse who would fight for this.
7
The next time Trump turns up at your event and comments on the Coronavirus, will someone please get the hook?
1
Duh. Paid sick leave + universal health care.
Because your barista, Uber driver, bodega clerk, nurse's aide and day care teacher are all uninsured, and riding the subway every day is like diving head first into a deep vat of pathogens.
8
Paid sick leave? Isn't that a scary socialist idea? Communist even? Definitely a job killing regulation. Just ask the experts in the Trump administration.
4
@Rich, It should be reimbursed to the employer by the federal government like it is in enlightened capitalist countries. It should be paid for by payroll tax. [ I get your sarcasm.]
I prefer market solutions to Marxist-Socialist-Leninist solutions. Thank you.
4
@Southern Boy What market solution will keep the corona virus away from you? This is a serious question. I'd like to know your answer, because I can't see one.
2
I've quit going to restaurants. Just the thought of having the workers in in kitchen who are forced to work while sick making my salad gives me the creeps.
9
Not to mention the wait staff, and busboys clearing tables. Low paid and no sick leave.
5
Don't forget that when your child is sick you need to keep them home from school. Your child's kindergarten class is not a baby sitting service for sick children. Young children spread dribble on each other.
5
The prescription for paid sick leave for everyone who fall sick to contain the virus is right on the money.
The cost of testing should be paid by the government. Taking out sick people from circulation for one week is the best remedy.
If we can afford a trillion dollar tax cut for the rich, we should be able to afford the cost.
6
I've heard representatives of major companies whine about "not being able to afford" paid sick leave or health coverage.
I guess they must not be as intelligent as the business owners in other countries who do just fine with a system of mandatory benefits.
17
@Pdxtran, In a number of those countries it is not the company who bears the cost of sick leave depending on how many of their workers fall sick. Rather it is federal government reimbursed and ultimately paid for either through general taxation or a payroll tax.
Oh thank you, Gray Lady Bountiful for suggesting that a Band Aid be applied to a virus. It's a little late now that a pandemic is upon the least prepared nation in the industrialized world to suggest a single measure be taken to offset the harm done by institutional resistance to universal healthcare, paid sick leave, child care, paid parental leave, all the benefits that accrue to those who live in civilized countries where these policies have been in place for decades. The New York Times has led the bootstraps brigade of American Exceptionalism, rugged individualism and self reliance, all the better to serve corporate interests, that has boxed America into a very tight space that cannot possibly deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Every segment of society will have to change radically, but the political will to create those changes may not be adequate, and the elaborate intricacies of Rube Goldbergian government move, if at all, at a pace far too slow to address this highly unpredictable crisis. There will be no Manhattan Project, no Keynesian-based economic mobilization to save America from itself.
1
Read these statistics and then remind me again how, once upon a time, unions were essential, but that they have long since outlived their useful purposes. It seems that, at least in some cases, workers' rights and solid compensation packages (including PTO) benefit society as a whole, and not just those lazy, greedy union slouches.
5
Phew!
It’s so comforting to know that more government is the solution to every problem.
It’s a wonder that government hasn’t solved all of society’s ills already - like here in NYC, where more government has solved the homeless crisis, fixed public schools and kept crime rates low.
Oh, wait. Sorry. I was thinking of somewhere over the rainbow.
1
All these proposals to provide govenment mandated paid sick leave in response to Covd 19,,could result in a number of employers bankrupt and ..recovered victims jobless. Advocating such leftist bucket list social mandates during a potentially serious outbreak is troubling.
There are likely future outbreaks of recombinant viruses as airlines connect to remote locations.How we respond now matters more in future.
Everyone is equally susceptible in this.
The Republicans who control the Senate listen to wealth. It's really up to the wealthy to recognize that they'll benefit. Microbes don't obey "keep out" signs. What about people who keep your house, lawn, and golf club shiny and turning? The private schools staffed by underpaid teachers hired at will. So often the rich can't think beyond their class. Will they let themselves get sick because of it?
7
Paid sick-leave now is a must! It cannot wait. Congress must pass VETO PROOF legislation to that effect.
But even if people have sick-leave, without an assurance that they will not be bankrupted after seeking medical care, sick people may still hesitate to see a doctor.
Paid sick-leave alone is necessary. But insufficient. People need to know they will be treated but not bankrupted due to receiving treatment.
(Could the Times also please take away the blinking “virus sign” in this piece? It is extremely bothersome to me. And maybe others!)
4
Naturally Trump views Covid-19 through the same lens through which he sees everything: money. Trade isn’t about workers or the environment or even general prosperity, but the "balance" of trade: who gets to "keep’ the money. He brags daily about the stock market and warns darkly the economy will crumble without him. Immigrants aren’t people fleeing violence; they’re welchers.
And so now science. The crisis demands rational government action, and Trump instead demands cheap money. His only real action, apart from denial, is official denialism: placing Pence in charge of "messaging". As though a virus pays attention to the news.
2
Yes paid sick leave is a way to minimize spread of the contagion. If we don’t get a grip and continue to pretend that we will be ok, we could be faced with what happened in Wuhan with no tough central government to come in and stabilize the situation. Yes the virus is here. My mother is in lock down in her assisted living facility in Seattle and we are not allowed in to visit her and her 90th birthday party is on hold, hopefully our state governments like Gov Inslee, are better equipped to handle this crisis, I have no faith in the federal government at the moment. I don’t even trust that trump will tell the truth when truth needs to be told. A rate cut by the fed or spending billions on a border wall will not keep my mom and the rest of us safe from this virus. Why not divert that money for something more sensible like paid sick leave.
3
If a business, small to large, can't offer basic (by Western world standards) employee protections, it shouldn't be allowed to exist. People must always trump profit!
2
You forgot to mention that a high percentage of private sector workers who receive PTO or “paid time off” (vacation or personal days)... DO NOT receive (and therefore cannot accrue) “sick days”... and are REQUIRED they must use their PTO days or take “leave without pay”.
1
I've said this ever since I worked fast food jobs in high school and college. No paid sick leave at both establishments I worked at, possibly for full time employees but most, including me, were part time. I can't tell you how many times I worked with sick employees who were handling people's food. You would be surprised and disgusted to know how many times sick people have ever prepared your McDonald's meal. Management doesn't care, they just need bodies to work, and the masses need their $1 cheeseburgers in under 90 seconds so they don't think twice about it either. I'm glad I work at a company where I receive paid sick leave now.
5
A bit of good news:
"Covid-19 is deadlier than the seasonal flu, but does not transmit as easily." (W.H.O.)
But, for us:
"And even if a million test kits were available, public health laboratories say they would not be able to process nearly that many within a week." (HHS).
Meanwhile:
South Korea has drive-through tests.
" passengers and drivers go through the entire testing process in a matter of minutes without ever getting out of their cars." (CNN)
Our "healthcare system" is pathetic, insanely expensive
scam.
5
National sick leave is like discussing free unicorns at this point considering that the US can’t even adequately test for the virus compared to nearly every other country facing the Coronavirus. Are we a third world country? Sure seems like it. And to top it off we have Dotard saying how very great everything is going and how beautifully prepared we are for what should be very low risk for most people...riiiight
4
Not just sick leave but a culture that values people over production. Many people have sick leave but do not dare use it for fear the boss will not see them as "committed" enough to the company.
4
"The current system is practically devised to spread infectious disease."
The current system makes the masses merely fodder for protecting the few.
4
This is a no brainer. When a sick child can stay home from school, a worker should stay home from work as well. Some companies are better than others now about allotting paid sick leave but most don't care because for them a buck is a buck. Unfortunately most politicians and CEOs, sick leave is not on their radar screen because it is too much of a European socialist idea. Just like free child care, pay equity, maternal and paternal leave, free college, affordable housing etc.... sick leave is going to be a difficult hill to climb until we can wipe out the Republicans out of office.
Can't you just picture it at the pharmaceutical meeting at the White House... Trump demanding a vaccine from big pharma. In exchange that push to lower drug prices... dropped from discussion. Help me win and I'll help you make more money. What's left out of the discussion is the fact that the bulk of the development of a vaccine will be done by government sponsored research, paid by the taxpayers. But under Trump the vaccine will cost the patient a lot. And the fancy ads suggesting you sit down and talk with your doctor about getting it should soon be appearing during your evening news. By the way... the flu vaccine... provided at no cost to anyone who wants it.....good idea, huh? A Democratic Socialist idea.
1
Good luck getting this from the “let suffer” approach to the sick and poor of this administration and the GOP that, except for John McCain, would have take health care coverage away from millions.
4
Tell this to the billionaire owners of Walmart or to the billionaire who stocks the Amazon warehouses with ibuprofen so workers can keep working while in pain or sick. The billionaires don't care if their workers drop dead on the job.
4
Yet another example of "Don't you have that already?" in America. We have had that for years like universal health coverage. It is like when elephants are first captured they must be tethered to a stump. But after getting used to it they do not have to be tied up by the leg anymore; and when they are released they return of own accord.
3
Actually, retail businesses have shut down left and right because of Amazon. Schools indeed are gathering place but the young seem to be less affected than the old. Any assisted living or nursing home by definition results in a concentration of the often frail and vulnerable elderly (and often horrific ventilation systems.) Open the windows.
The federal government with the various presidents is useful only to continue wars and cut taxes on the rich-- raise them on the poor as the predatory capitalists like FIOS raise prices 35% in one year.
We need Medicare 4 all... (but of course we can't afford what might cut into the salaries of the bureaucrats -- yes why not Corona virus in the their useless meetings- or the profits of drug and equipment companies, etc. ) We need paid medical leave. How the virus will play out-- at this point we really do not know. And a plastic shield over the face might do much more than a face mask..
The FED simply plays games to protect the super rich... should raise interest rates so people can be prudent savers not "investors."
But commonsense is not taught in school and obviously despised esp. when spoken by a woman (Warren).
The consumer economy needs to implode. Too much garbage produced daily by business. (The plastic bag and star bans are jokes. I have my reusable cotton bags.)
Why is everything made in China? shareholder value?? or stupidity? The govmt lost power eons ago.
2
I have paid sick leave but not maternity leave. I want to save my sick leave so I don’t have to return to work mere days after giving birth. So there is that...use sick leave if I may have just the common cold, returning to the office days after giving birth....mmmh
Paid sick leave should be a FEDERAL GOVERNMENT benefit just like Social Security. Paid for by a payroll tax like Social Security but with no ceiling on salary. That is how it works in capitalist Sweden and a number of other countries that take good care of both their businesses and people.
We as the public know nothing about this virus but we do know how it spreads and that’s when sick children, low income workers, teachers, and public employees go to work sick. Heck this could be the culmination of many flu viruses and do we really need to see a version of the walking dead before our leaders start to pay people to stay home when they are sick or put pressure on the owners. What about a new strain forming right now killing people who have already recovered from the flu. No answers and no coordination between all these agencies creates lies and panic just tell the truth
1
Gee. Almost like Medicare for all and generally better treatment of everyone might be a ... national security issue?
3
This virus is a wake-up call. The decline of unions, the rise of the gig economy, corporate greed, the need for 2 income households to keep families afloat, not to mention a distrust for science and objective truth that the republican right has legitimized, could cripple our response to this virus. As an administrative law judge, I saw hundreds of cases where workers were forced to choose between a paycheck and caring for their health or the health of a family member. We can and must do better.
2
Here's the thing I haven't seen addressed: When you call in sick for a service or hospitality job, you're throwing all of your coworkers into disarray.
For example, in a hotel where I worked, two front desk agents got the flu for a couple of weeks. What were they supposed to do? Staying home would have meant all days off canceled, the remaining handful of staff working 16-hour solo double shifts, running a 125-room property alone. They came to work so that our hotel could operate. Yet they also had to interact with the public, handle food, and run the risk of spreading disease.
Paid sick leave or not, how are service businesses supposed to function when workers are absent? How can the remaining workers handle the impossible demands placed on them? I really don't know what the solution would be. Businesses can't employ extra workers to have around "just in case."
2
@Alex This is lame. Businesses that already have sick leave policies have this problem and figure out how to deal with absences. If you are running so thin that you cannot afford to have a few people out sick, you need to rethink whether how you are running your business or if you really aren’t bankrupt already.
3
We really don't know how many people have Covid-19. We only have numbers on confirmed cases, deaths, and recovered cases. How many go unreported because we are not testing? We know the symptoms can be mild in some, and severe in others. This remains the quandary.
Paid sick leave is a must, but will employers enforce it? The top executives push for cost containment above all else. Most hospitals are already running on bare bones, and yes some health care workers come to work sick. I assume they resort to this measure because they need the money, or do not want too many call-outs on their record as this can lead termination. As an RN, I hope we will have the needed resources to deal with a pandemic in the U.S. Still, I have concerns about short-staffing, shortages of personal protective equipment, and general worker fatigue. China dealt with these same issues. I hope we can do better.
1
The Coronavirus is shining a glaring spotlight on some flaws in our society, culture, and economy that should have been fixed long ago. Too many Americans lack access to affordable, effective healthcare. Many will not go to be tested or treated for this virus or anything else because they cannot afford the price of the care. When the Senate holds up a bill because it would limit how much pharmaceutical companies could charge for a life-saving virus vaccine, that should tell all of us what matters in this country--and it is not the health of Americans. Paid sick leave is a must. It should have been taken care of years ago. I was lucky to work in the teaching profession for 30 years where I could accrue sick leave and use those days as I needed to. Now, I watch members of my family go to work sick or lose money because the businesses and companies they work for do not have paid sick leave. We don't have enough test kits for this virus. We get different stories from the Trump Administration depending on who's telling the story. People are getting sick and dying and we don't have the governmental infrastructure in place to effectively deal with a growing public health crisis. The light is shining brightly--showing us exactly what we need to do and fix. The question is as always--will we?
4
Trump and Pence: Our anti-science guys at large are now in charge. The focus of such Republican “leaders” is generally on short term economic efficiency—a focus that blinkers them to the benefits of paid sick leave.
Trump's falsehoods and Pence’s attempts to micromanage the scientific experts are also consistent with widespread Republican anti-intellectualism—the anti intellectualism that undercuts long-term planning.
Many Republicans, like Trump and Pence, think primarily in terms of short-term economic advantage, deregulation and tax reduction. Many also fear complexity, ambiguity and "Others."
Critical thinking skills and scientific-experimental modes of inquiry enable individuals to rationally confront threats to the common welfare and to provide solutions beneficial to the nation’s physical, psychological and spiritual well-being.
Humanistic reflection broadens student sensibilities with respect to social complexity, to ethical ambiguity and to those "Other" than themselves.
Critical thinking skills, experimental reasoning and humanistic reflection threaten the fundamentalism so dear to many a Republican heart: "Free"-market fundamentalism and tribal "Christian" fundamentalism.
Hence Republican leaders and their media enablers continually promote an insular anti-intellectualism and disparage both science and critical reflection. GOP tribalism is a regressive rejection of our common humanity, and of our communal intellectual and spiritual potential.
2
Stop voting for Republicans. Period. If you want good policy that benefits the vast majority of Americans, rather than the wealthiest one percent, do not vote for any Republican at any level. This isn't rocket science. Figure it out people.
4
The crying need to let people off with pay when they are sick is an issue that goes far beyond Covid-19. How many times are people infected by workers when they go to a restaurant where people are cooking or serving who are sick? It probably happens millions of times per year, sending other people home from work, costing businesses billions of dollars in lost productivity.
The other huge problem is people trying to prove their are "good soldiers" by showing up for work on the first day they are sick and then going home after having spread their cold or flu around the workplace. This is crazy but it is standard practice, again, for millions of workers: you show up to let everyone know you really are sick, put in a half productive day spreading the disease and then go home, sicker, to try to get well.
Unfortunately, in the effort to save money, we have a lot of practices that wind up costing far more. The airline's policies of requiring you to fly even if you are ill with non-refundable tickets is another huge financial hit that causes diseases to be spread. United and American have, for the moment, rescinded that policy but, no doubt, they'll put it back on ASAP when Covid-19 fades.
The airlines should be forced to change that policy permanently.
9
Your nails have hit various heads. Companies need to offer paid sick leave. To not because of the mythical worker who will abuse the policy is just an excuse. And during flu season don’t deny any worker pay who is sick. Our company has a liberal work at home policy so our employees stay home and work when they are under the weather. But I will say the reason that people come to work sick isn’t always because they don’t have paid time off, they just don’t want to use that time because they want to save it for vacations.
133
In regard to airline policies on non-refundable tickets, which require you to pay a big fee of $200. to reuse the fare, we found out recently that one can appeal to the airline with a doctor's note. We were planning a trip to Panama and had to cancel because of my work requirements. As bad luck would have it, both of us then got sick and couldn't have traveled anyway. With the required note from a physician, we appealed to American Airlines. Request denied, no explanation given. At least it is good to know there is a process of appeal even if it isn't honored frequently.
2
@JWyly
Your last sentence actually speaks to the reason for purposefully separating paid vacation and sick time. Speaking for families with school-aged children, there are a whole lot of days off on the school calendar when no other child care is available so families very reasonably plan their vacation time for the year around those breaks. If you get moderately sick (or are quarantined) and have to be home for more than a couple/few days, that eats into a significant portion of most people's single-pool paid time off. When you're kids are inevitably going to be out of school later in the year, workers/families end up facing that exact same pay hit, and that's assuming your employer doesn't put you on the chopping block for needing unpaid time off. US workers should have PTO for both planned and unplanned absences, as they do in many other developed nations.
2
Paid sick leave sounds revolutionary. But consider the alternative. I remember well, in my youth, how much we used to appreciate when somebody with a severe 'cold' (a viral infection) would show up at work anyway; this, in spite of the high 'chance' of contaminating the environment and promoting the rest of us to acquire the same miserable effects; a true patriot, right? Not so, by far!
1
For the life of me I cannot fathom why the US does not have paid sick leave. As a salaried employee I’ve been allocated 12 sick days per year for the past 43 years. if you’re fortunate and in reasonable heath and don’t need them they accumulate, then when you reach a good age and start to fall apart there’s a whole lot there to bank on. I think it’s called valuing your employees. Something the US can and needs to learn from other countries.
522
@Mal B 12 days a year? What if you get hit by a car on your way to work on your bike and end up in traction for weeks? What if you get cancer at an early age? What if you're a school teacher and need to be quarantined for two weeks (and counting). Etc. Sick leave should be what you need, not what the bean-counters figure they can give up and still maintain profits.
29
@Mal B Because, people keep voting for Republicans. There's no mystery here. If you want good policy, stop voting Republican. Period.
102
@Mal B, US publicly owned firms that do allow employees sick days generally do not let them accumulate because then they have to accrue the liability for them which hurts reported earnings. Of course that leads to abuse nearing year-end which gives sick leave a bad rep. Another reason that it needs to be paid from the federal government reimbursing the employer as is done in enlightened capitalist countries.
23
A virus is not impressed by interest rates. We have to stop the spreading of the disease as this is cheaper than trying to fix it when it’s all over. This is an emergency and has to be handled accordingly. Paid sick leave and medicare for all is the answer.
394
@Daniel Korb - I'm an American who spent the first half of my career in the US and the last half here in Switzerland. I was stunned at the generous sick leave and vacation policies when I first started working here.
US corporations and the government don't think about, nor do they care, about the regular working people. I've experienced both systems and think Switzerland is a lot more humane.
66
@Daniel Korb - Fix the illegal cross border sieve!
3
@Daniel Korb You really believe Americans are going to stay home in their house or apartment and self-quarantine for 14 days, just in case? Chinese people yes, Japanese people yes. But the average American "at risk" in an outbreak city, stay home to do their part in fixing this? Hmmm... Even Asican countries had to impose fines, and those are polite societies that wear face masks when they have a cold in summer.
16
I strongly agree. As a former school RN, I had a number of parents in our school beg me not to send their child home despite vomiting or a fever because they were terrified that they would be fired or penalized if they took a "sick day" for their child. Or they gave the child Tylenol and then expected a call from the RN when the child's temperature rose after 4 hours. We have no hope of containment under these circumstances.
632
Former school nurse here also agreeing with all this.
119
@BBurd I was a teacher in a Title I school for over twenty years and saw this every single year. No wonder schools are no better than Petri dishes this time of year.
76
@BBurd : And there's still no hope with the type of policy the Times is promoting. Why? Because those of us in the gig economy wouldn't qualify. Our ability to support ourselves and our families will be hammered if our kids fall sick, or their schools close and we can't work, or we're quarantined.
Until we get serious and acknowledge that many of us are no longer paid on a W-2, we won't get this problem under control.
49
It is enraging to read proposals for paid sick leave in 2020 as if the idea is some sort of a progressive wish list. The fact is that American employers have been stripping employees of pay levels, fringe benefits, and pensions since the election of Ronald Reagan. You can hear the despair of America's workers in the songs of contemporary rock and roll ballads all the way back to the 1980's. Remember Billy Joel's "Allentown"? Listen to the words now....and you'll realize that neither party has been listening for over thirty years. Americans politicians adopted empty mantras while American workers, the salary dependent class, lost year after year.
593
@Bill, It should be on the government, not the employer to pay sick employees. That is how it is done in enlightened capitalist countries.
25
@Bill How can I "like" this more than once?
25
@carol goldstein
I don't know, but if we did it that way, business interests would howl because taxes would need to go up to support such a policy.
8
We’ve heard that most Americans can’t afford a $400 surprise bill. What do think will happen when they are forced to stay home for 2 weeks? What if you’re exposed multiple times - do you get quarantined each time? How many folk will pay a doctor bill to get checked. Or afford to go to a hospital bill if it’s worse? And if they have kids - what to do when school is cancelled? Or if you work for a venue whose events have been canceled? There are people who could reasonably expect to have multiple days off - with no pay - through no choice if there own. Whose going to pay the bills?
I’ve heard nothing from our leaders to address these issues.
648
@Reb Be careful my friend. Somebody can brand your reasonable comment as socialist.
131
And most will vote for Trump I fear.
21
@Reb
You will miss a couple mortgage payments, or maybe just one contract for deed payment, and lose your home to an investor who has been waiting for just this kind of opportunity, and a few weeks later when you are back at work, he will rent your old home back to you for 20% more than your mortgage payment was. The answer to your question "Who is going to pay those bills?" - You are, with interest.
103
The corporate race to the bottom -- gig jobs at poverty wages with no health insurance or sick leave -- meets the coronavirus pandemic. All to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
834
@Portola
"All to pay for tax cuts for the rich... "
And to deny basic healthcare and workers rights to the rest of us. For some reason, the majority of voters have not put that thought together with their votes yet, appearing to be more interested in the DNC's goal of beating Sanders than the nation's best interest in defeating Trump.
79
@Portola Concisely summarized. Hopefully Joe will be adopting some of Warren's plans.
30
@avrds "Health care for all" conflicts with "Help those who deserve it." For many people it's really that simple, as many attempts to understand the bias against universal health care have shown. Too many people would rather do without a benefit than see an "undeserving" person get it too. Remember Reagan's attacks on welfare queens?
95
Two days? Pretty tepid suggestion. Workers should have a minimum of 14 wellness days per year. By "wellness," I mean any unscheduled time off paid and free from penalty. You don't even need to be sick. Sometimes you just need a day off. This is of course in addition to your regular scheduled and paid vacation days. We don't need a pandemic to justify the time off. Europe already has this system in place.
Since were asking for things. Why can't we do away with the rigidly mandated 40 hour work week too? I don't understand how working exactly one less hour a week can so drastically alter the economic outcome of a family's household. No benefits for 39 hours work? It's highway robbery. Benefits, particularly for low wage employees, should be prorated for all levels of employment.
Better yet, we could socialize essential benefits like healthcare.
13
There is a difference between true paid “sick leave” and “paid time off (PTO)”, which is the current trend in employee benefits. When paid leave for illness is combined with paid voluntary leave (vacation), employees will “work sick” to preserve their PTO for something they perceive as more important (or just in case something worse happens in the unforeseeable future). This practice, coupled with the recent trend in favor of open office designs, gives new meaning to the term “corporate culture” - a Petri dish for incubation of communicable diseases.
12
You need to help workers in the gig economy as well. Do we really want sick Uber drivers taking you to a medical appointment? Workers on zero hour contracts may have the ability to take sick time, but at their cost.
How about an emergency 1% tax on all executive bonuses. That would more than cover the total costs of workers sick pay, and they wouldn’t even notice it.
10
The only thing one can expect from the trump administration and senate republicans is the WRONG response to this pandemic. This virus requires science, logic and fortitude to do the right thing, everything the current government lacks. If 60% of the world’s population succumbs to the virus, with a 3.5% mortality rate, we can expect over 140 million people to loose their lives this year. If the virus reappears again next year and, God forbid, morphs into a new strain, well, connect the dots. Mother Nature is a tough taskmaster and is on a mission to curb population growth and lower the demands that the human population is placing on the planet. I’m sure she has more planned.
10
Paid sick leave should not just be mandated by the government. It should be paid for by the government.
For the duration of the current emergency, our government should step in and ensure that employees in public-facing occupations (e.g. restaurants, hospitals, hotels) are encouraged to stay away from work when sick. This will significantly reduce the rate of transmission and decrease the overall cost to our society of the epidemic.
6
My mom was a registered nurse for nearly 30 years at the same hospital in Tallahassee when she got the cancer that ultimately killed her. That’s how I found out she had just 6 days per year of sick leave. After she used four, she was brought in for a disciplinary meeting. She was a NURSE in peds intensive care (PICU). The last job, literally, where it would be in the public’s interest to have employees forced to work sick, which many nurses had to do with infections! Meanwhile, I worked at yahoo at the time as an editor where I worked from home regularly and had unlimited sick leave. Do you see the issue here? We should want restaurant and retail workers, etc, (everyone) to have paid sick leave out of a sense of fairness and humanity. But, barring that, we should want it selfishly to protect the public - ourselves.
31
Many people DO GET paid sick leave and they still go to work.
Many occupations, even health care occupations, expect their employees to go to work, especially when it is "only a cold, or the flu".
Remember, many people do not even take vacations because they feel like they need to be at work 16 hours a day.
5
@esp
One of the best ways to help people change is to provide them with info about what other people do.
This virus is an emergency. Help people understand what others do in an emergency:
* Do they stay in a burning building?
* Do they stand in the way of an oncoming bus?
* Would they go outdoors if a tiger were loose nearby?
If we had a sane White House, we’d be seeing ads everywhere urging us to stay home if sick.
4
TheraP,
What a great comment! Should be a NYT pick!
@TheraP
People really do not care about others.
We are already out of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, etc because people are only concerned about their own needs.
The fundamental problem is that a business that has no revenue, because it must stop producing revenue when a sufficient portion of its employees are out on paid leave, cannot afford paid leave. They can barely afford to furlough their employees.
Apple, as an example, is not a normal American business. Most are small, have few employees, and meet their cash demands based on just-in-time revenue.
Heck, small businesses may go under just trying to keep ahead of their health insurance in a time of pandemic.
Will the government directly give or loan money to businesses that will run out of cash when the revenue stops but the paychecks continue? Will they require banks to extend lines of credit? A company that should be able to survive profitable can go bankrupt when the cash runs out, but the need for pay disbursements moves forward.
Solutions have to be based on reality, not an unreachable ideal. Congress can mandate anything they want, but they cannot mandate simple math. Zero revenue minus large payroll equals going our of business.
3
@Cathy Oh, yes, it can't possibly be done......but it is. Every day all across the world in other places things like sick leave, vacation, health care, retirement, and child care are provided and those countries are still very much open for business. The conservatives in America would have you believe that NONE of those things can be provided because it would drive people out of business. So let me ask you Cathy....how are things going business wise in America now...when less and less pay and benefits are being provided? Are big companies going out of business here? Is your local pharmacy still open? Was it government mandates that closed them? Or has a big behemoth driven them out? One that makes tons of profit and provides little in pay and benefits?
14
What does your hard-nosed, conservative ideology have to say about unproductive businesses? About competition? Tough noogies, right? Survival of the fittest?
Well, large firms routinely grant sick leave and vacation to their employees. They don’t live hand to mouth, using last week’s receipts for this week’s payroll. They’re not being driven out of business, either, by others working 52 weeks a year without benefits.
If your business requires nights and weekends and can’t survive vacations and illness, it’s unproductive. Its capital would be better invested elsewhere, where it can benefit owner and worker alike with a decent, livable life.
1
The obvious peril to our National Security and our GDP posed by the absence of universal healthcare and mandatory sick time and family leave time is clear. How much will it cost every employer if a sick employee comes to work? Without sick time, health insurance, “Underpaid” workers are compelled to work. What will that cost in lives and lost productivity and lost profits?
16
@Joseph Huben
Like the Great Depression resulted in Social Security, I suspect COVID-19 will ultimately result in some form of universal medical care, universal sick leave and a hugely expanded Public Health System.
29
Government-mandated paid leave will hurt unskilled, entry level workers. There is no longer any doubt that minimum wage increases depress employment, and mandating other benefits, such as paid leave, does the same. No employer will be inclined to take on new, unskilled workers if forced not only to pay $15 an hour but to grant paid leave on top. Kiosks and touch screens, an alternative for many employers, demand neither.
Automation will occur anyway. The lack of sick leave in this country is a public health issue, and in the case of a true pandemic also a national security issue.
Perhaps there should be penalties exacted from employers whose employees become disease vectors due to forced contact with the public while sick. After all, in such cases the employer’s policies result in negative effects for the rest of us. We have to change the prevailing culture of profits over all else.
12
I am originally from Portugal, and have been following the Coronavirus news from there. They have just instituted that anyone who decides to self quarantine for the virus at a doctor’s recommendation will receive 100% of pay for up to one month and cannot be fired. This is on top of sick leave in case they do get the virus, as exiting law protects every worker with sick leave for up to one month. Portugal is a much poorer country in every measure compared to the US. Why can’t we treat our people here in the US with compassion?
156
@Watchman Because compassion for others is not an American value. Compassion for others generates no monetary profit for yourself, so in America it's seen as extraneous.
22
Your prescriptive article does not address the case of gig workers. A good portion of my nice apartment building in NYC is gig workers working from home. Paid leave? Are you kidding. None of us have access to any sick leave. No work, no pay. What about workers in the motion picture business? No sick pay and no paid sick leave.
Coronavirus actually moves the discussion closer to universal basic income. Universal basic income will arrive not due to political will but due to technology and public health pressures. It's simply inevitable. 5G embedded in utilities and appliances will require restocking, repairs, service calls, and monthly bill paying from a checking account automatic billing set aside - which only upper middle class and above can truly afford. Lower and middle income budgets juggle and decide cash flow each month. The ubiquitous automatic billing that 5G will require will also require widespread adoption - not just the top 1%. So- widespread adoption of 5G services automatic billing requires a massive shift in the cash flow of all of society and thus guaranteed basic income. Tech companies cannot invest in the last biggest stretch of the 5G pipeline unless guaranteed a return on their investment, i.e., willing and ABLE consumers. Think of big pharma. They refuse to invest in stockpiling for pandemics unless the government guarantees a safety net.
13
I live in a non-profit retirement community and I’m pleased to know that all our workers receive sick days. Those on the bottom rungs are unionized, have medical benefits and vacation time in addition to sick leave.
Because of this I know we residents are protected from employees coming in sick and infecting us with this virus. (I am certain they have received advice to stay home if they have symptoms of the virus. Even though as yet there have been no cases here.)
I also feel certain that we residents will self-isolate and seek medical care should we have symptoms. (I reside in “independent living” in my own roomy apartment as does everyone in my building.)
At the same time I feel cautious already about being in any large group situation here. And I expect at some point that we may be asked to remain in our apartments or that visitors may be limited or have to stay away - either for our protection or for theirs.
We all have to be ready to make sacrifices on behalf of the society at large, whether it is to ensure everyone gets sick leave or free testing and treatment for this virus.
We are in new territory, no matter our age. And we have to adjust to the new circumstances this virus asks of ALL of us.
14
The media hype over the dangers of the coronavirus has much more dangerous consequences than the virus itself. I am a Professor of Medical Genetics. There are numerous unexplained cases of coronavirus in the US and elsewhere. This raises the possibility that the Coronavirus was for a long time indigenous to humans. I suspect that as for now population wide screening will show that in every country a certain % of the population are corona virus carriers. Very informative are 2 recent medical articles in The Atlantic 1. You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.JAMES HAMBLIN FEBRUARY 24,. Professor Lipsitch a Harvard epidemiologist says that with in the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus ,and It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic. The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease”2. The Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic The differences between the global response to the Great Flu Pandemic and today’s COVID-19 outbreak could not be more striking. MARCH 3, 2020
3
@lieberma
If they have already been able to figure out that virus cases in the Northwest are similar to the virus cases that were seen initially in the US, why would they not know already that this virus has been circulating for a long time and might have even been indigenous? Why would everyone around the world be calling it a “novel” virus?
This comment has been posted over and over at the Times. And it makes me suspicious, given that no links are ever provided. If this theory were important, I have no doubt the Times would have an Op-Ed on it. So I caution readers to beware of unsubstantiated theories, which may be attempting to minimize the seriousness of this NEW virus, which, according to the WHO - just yesterday - is now said to have a 3.4% mortality.
Please, Times, be very cautious about comments - like this one - that appear to be unsubstantiated and contradictory to what Epidemiologists are reporting.
It is vital that your readers receive accurate info. “A new seasonal disease”???
If the Times cannot corroborate this, such comments should not be printed!
3
Those of us in healthcare families also know there are different forms of Coronavirus. It is by modifying tests for some other forms that Fred Hutchinson microbiologists in Seattle have been able to get at least SOME testing done while the region waits for more test kits.
Please do not conflate other forms of Coronavirus with COR 19. As someone with healthcare training, you know as well as many of us that Atlantic is NOT the definitive word on this outbreak.
1
Excellent idea! And Uncle Sam should pick up the tab.
Trump's call for lower interest rates falls in the "be careful what you wish for" category. If firms can't make money on new projects at current interest rates, then that proposed business venture is almost certainly a bad idea.
Keeping interest rates at, say, 2-2.5 %, removes the incentive to gamble on risky investments. After all, if inflation erodes the value of cash on hand, firms will be motivated to fund ventures of dubious value in order to get at least a paltry return.
The loss of "outside money," the $23 trillion the Treasury has injected into the economy via annual federal deficits, is in itself not a huge problem. It's "found money" and, like finding a $100 bill on the sidewalk and then losing it through a hole in your pocket, has no effect on the economy.
But when "outside money" is used as collateral to obtain "inside money" through bank loans, then the loss of "outside money" can trigger a series of falling financial dominoes that can bring down the entire banking system.
1
I am a Canadian who for several years wrote Pandemic plans for large companies across North America. I hated being assigned a company in the USA because of the futility of this exercise. In Canada employers were much more receptive to modifying sick leave and encouraging employees to stay home if sick. In the US several companies refused to even consider granting their employees even a few paid sick days to prevent the illness from spreading to their other employees. I viewed these assignments as a futile effort only for the Corporate Office to be able to state to their shareholders they had a plan that in reality was only as useful as the paper it was written on.
77
Talk where I work is all about keeping the customers happy, soothing the customers' fears, and not a wit about staying home if we feel ill and how we would or would not be compensated if this were the case. We get one paid sick day as per our union. One. I have gone to work on broken bones; the day before life-saving surgery I went to work...only once did I sneak out before hurling on the precious customers...
In other words, yes, this virus will reveal and widen the cracks in our system. I recently read here in the Times advice on what to do should one experience the symptoms. Don't take a car service to the hospital. That leaves an ambulance, which we cannot afford. I'll probably have to walk if it comes to that.
Add to this that being single, or living with one partner, rather than in an extended family situation makes coming to work when ill that much more necessary. Social engineering is also to blame.
9
I am a physician working for a large group and I can't imagine a scenario in which our corporate overlords ever offer us paid sick leave. It'll come out of our limited vacation.
24
I have been adamant about the need for sick time as separate from vacation time. As the head of a nonprofit serving seniors, many of whom are home bound, it is essential. My staff understands that if they are sick, they stay home. It is the only way I know of to prevent contagious illnesses from spreading. It is good business and good leadership in my opinion.
15
Short term "thinking" is the bane of our society. Company owners who won't pay an infected employee to stay home don't realize the obvious, logical likelihood that consequent multiple infections could ruin the company a week or two later.
30
I was indeed fortunate to work for NYS for 3 decades and to have had the 'luxury' of 12 paid sick days per year. I was always getting sick - terrible colds at least 4 times a year, repeated bouts of strep throat, surgeries, and many other ailments over the years. I believed the days I had to spend at home in bed were days I was entitled to. The reality is that the state imposed draconian restrictions on the use of this sick leave and watched employees with a jaded eye assuming that any use of sick leave was an abuse. The result was that we came to work sick all too often, afraid of being disciplined for being sick. Required to produce medical notes for years on end, we felt like we were treated as if we were deliberate truants. So, paid sick leave is only valuable if employees are allowed to use this benefit without harassment from management. Still, I did use it and I am grateful for it. I was not faking illness and would have certainly preferred to have been well and not to have needed it. It is shocking to me to read the statistics of how few employees in this country have any paid sick-leave benefits at all, but the reality is that the benefit means nothing if you can't use it. To live with the fear that calling in sick may result in losing one's job is Dickensian. I heartily agree with the suggestion that the best way to dampen the spread of the Coronavirus is to give employees paid sick leave. But it has to be genuine.
31
I had a call center job that "let me" call in sick. But only if I had a doctor's note -- delivered on the first day I would be out -- and the job didn't come with health insurance. In my work contract, missing a day without a doctor's note or other excused absence (always with written notice like a notarized death certificate in the case of a death) was grounds for immediate termination.
People are going to go work while sick -- there is no choice.
30
I just wonder how the USA are still considered a developed country.
A rather simple epidemic of the type that has occurred every ten years or so shows that administration, government, policy and the economic and social system are woefully inadequate.
Despite the country being led by a genius with the help of his equally genial kids.
And still no large scale testing?
If you fall behind Italy in terms of efficient governance you have serious issues.
104
The Supreme Court recently announced that this Fall it will hear the third challenge to the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care). The Trump Administration is supporting the position that the Act is unconstitutional and should be eliminated. Hopefully, the Democrats will find a way to make this a campaign issue in the 2020 elections. Eliminating health care for millions of people does not seem a sensible way to deal with a major pandemic that has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans.
32
It’s sad that we need a pandemic to illustrate the importance of labor rights and affordable, universal healthcare. It is sad that countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which democratized less than three decades ago, are doing a better job at combating this epidemic than we are. But here we are: welcome to 21st-century America.
28
Another helpful move would be to get people tested without the need to see a doctor: distribute sampling kits to every household, and get them to testing centers by courier or collectors coming around when called.
5
@sissifus
In France every village has a couple of local nurses.
For these things you need trained people but not necessarily a doctor.
10
@sissifus and hopefully for free.
Monetary stimulus can only put more money in pockets of the rich and idle class but relief to the working class by way of paid sick leave and other such incentives could be a real effective way to fight the battle against the coronavirus menace and limit its impact on economy and, of course, society.
22
This is an excellent time for Medicaid to jump in and have all patients tested free of charge to contain the outbreak. We do not want someone sick infecting others (+ causing hyper-expensive treatment) because they do not have $3000 to get tested.
If it works well it can also show the usefulness of a 'Medicaid for all' concept. (Dem candidates - are you listening?)
On that note: the US should suspend any medical blockade to Iran and offer humanitarian help. It is in nobody's interest to have the Middle East get more destabilized than it already is.
35
No. Best treatment is free flu shots for everyone. Period . because flu is a bigger threat annually - 20 to 30,000 death each year? Cost of preventive medicine versus dealing with these tragic death and the millions who suffer from flu?
Cost clearly is in favor of preventive flu shots.
6
@Kbu : the coronavirus is not the flu and there is no vaccine to treat it nor prevent it.
9
@kbu
The flu shot is free The only charge allowed is a small fee for the equipment etc to give the shot The vaccine itself is free For most people there is no charge at all Facts matter
9
@WJ I'm not sure of that. My Medicare covered my flu shot. It can be given with a "nurse visit" not requiring an office visit charge. Also the local pharmacies and public health departments administer it, but they also want your insurance for reimbursement. Public health may give it if you qualify for no cost or sliding scale.
3
Take action.
Call and/or email your elected Reps and Senators in DC, demand that they pass a bill to set aside X dollars to set up a commission to manage and distribute paid sick leave monies to companies and individuals who should stay home if they are sick or if anyone in their home is ill.
Congress has to do this now.
Also call and/or email your local or state health departments, and your elected reps and tell them to set up the same on a local level, pronto.
Paid sick leave. It is, indeed, the best treatment for SARS-CoV-2.
12
How about making sure everybody in this country has access to healthcare.
It seems every candidate considers it toxic to recommend that healthcare plans cover illegal immigrants as if they don't get sick and are incapable of spreading infectious diseases like coronavirus.
It isn't only on climate change that our politicians are choosing to ignore science to play to voters' prejudices.
82
@Steve When you say, "It isn't only on climate change that our politicians are choosing to ignore science to play to voters' prejudices," you must mean the GOP. Every Democrat is addressing climate change in their platforms.
1
If you're scraping by with Uber where do you turn if you get the Corona? Left or Right? My bet is wherever the next fare takes you.
31
You work or you don’t eat. It’s that simple.
4
If nothing else, the coronavirus has demonstrated the importance of universal healthcare coverage and paid family and sick leave. Even Republicans will come into contact with sick people who have to go to work because they cannot afford to stay home or go to a doctor.
The other thing the virus has proven is that Trump and his administration care nothing about the health and well being of the American people. They care only about the stock market and his reelection.
But even Trump, germophobe that he is, is vulnerable to people who cannot afford health care, particularly at his rallies. He should think twice when worrying more about his bottom line rather than the health of all of those around him.
98
@avrds
"Even Republicans will come into contact with sick people who have to go to work because they cannot afford to stay home or go to a doctor."
Yes, and those sick people are quite likely to be the employees of those same Republicans, who believe that no wage is too low and no worker should have any sort of leave, paid or unpaid. That would be socialism. Paying the people who keep your business running and create your wealth for you is just so hard on the profit margin, don't you know. And now you're asking them to provide paid leave? Oh, the horrors!!! What an affront to liberty! Let the free market decide who gets sick and who dies! Why can't sick employees just take two tax cuts for the rich and call in the morning?
Republicans are NEVER going to care what happens to workers. Even when what happens to those workers has implications for their own health. They are far too short-sighted.
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What Democrat currently running is the more pro-labor rights choice, that wants access to inexpensive healthcare as a human right to be viable in America?
Here’s a hint: It’s not a centrist.
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@Mike R I'd love to hear the candidates proposals for dealing with COVID19 or similar epidemics(or is it a pandemic?).
You are spot on, that one candidate's platform includes the reforms that public health experts have shown will reduce the impact of these events, and the other has said "nothing will fundamentally change".
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Not only paid sick leave, but docking people who come to work sick. Those who come to work sick not only expose their fellow workers, and customers where applicable, they "earn" a day's pay for a day of working at less capacity while spreading their germs.
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penalizing vulnerable populations is never a good idea
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@Observor When you're living on the edge, even a partial day's pay makes you go to work.
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Paid sick leave is part of it, but what do you do if you're part of the gig economy, pay yourself to stay home? The other part is the guaranteed right of health care for all regardless of ability to pay. I don't care how it's structured. Whether it's Sanders style Medicare for all or some other plan like in Switzerland, the nation simply cannot afford NOT to have it. One way or another, someone pays, so society might as well pay for it in a simple and orderly way.
We shouldn't wait for a pandemic to remind us to put our house in order, only to forget once the immediate emergency is over. In truth, there's a perpetual undercurrent of health emergency, whether it's lives needlessly lost for lack of timely medical help or families driven into medical bankruptcy.
23:25 EST, 3/03
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How about Federal sick leave supported bank loans just like the federal student loans?
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@Girish Kotwal Great, then the financial industry can be propped up while banrupting more citizens.
@Girish Kotwal Great another way to enrich the financial industry while bankrupting the middle class.
@Girish Kotwal So the half of the population who couldn't come with $400 in an emergency can borrow money to pay for sick leave? or is there something I didn't understand?
This is our reality. A CEO like Adam Neumann from WeWork can get a $1.7 billion exit package while people can put in a 40 hour work week and still not be able to afford rent. For all the companies who don't pay their gig workers sick days, I'd love to know what the CEO salary is.
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@figure8
It’s not just gig workers who don’t have sick days off. I get a few weeks guaranteed vacation and I work for a private practice in medicine. I don’t get any sick days off. The article is spot on. Many healthcare workers in private sector have zero sick days off . If you are not sick on your guaranteed vacation, you basically lose pay if you don’t go to work. I have seen people come in coughing and hacking and making other people vulnerable to sickness, but they don’t stay home as they don’t want any pay cut !!
10
Free testing. Paid sick leave for those who are employed.
Support for those who isolate at home, even if that is the gov't paying Uber drivers to deliver groceries and meds to the porch or hallway.
Paid family leave for those whose kids are out of school due to closures.
Free treatment at hospitals for the ones who need that support and have no insurance.
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That would be socialism. Many are afraid of that word. But would love to have the actual benefit if somehow it’s not socialism.
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@Katherine DeMott - Contrary to your statement that this would be socialism is incorrect. We have pretty much all of what Jean describes and Sweden is not a socialist country as many have been brainwashed to believe but a Social Democracy. That is a hyper market driven economy with a strong social net. It’s the best of both extremes.
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@Katherine DeMott So how about we call it human decency and responsible government? Would that make it more acceptable?
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Paid sick leave: what an idea! I would have liked sick leave; but I was a temp. As a temp, if you’re sick and don’t show up for work, you seriously annoy the employer and the temp agency. You’re supposed to be an unbreakable spare part, to be plugged into any workplace and to function perfectly, starting on your very first day. And, of course, you must never ask for “favors” like being able to stay home if you’re deathly ill. So I worked sick. I’ll never know how many co-workers I infected; but I didn’t have much choice. It was either go to work sick, or not pay the rent.
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As an independent gig worker I don't get paid time off if I'm sick. So when I get sick I have no choice but to work until I'm about to collapse. With our current system of vulture capitalism, it's every man for himself. Unless I'm on my deathbed there is no way I'd voluntarily quarantine myself for 2 days, much less 14 days.
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I have the same problem. I just cannot afford to stay home for long if I want to continue to do things like eat.
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@Markymark I see that you're in San Francisco.
California's passage of AB-5, which was supposedly to benefit gig workers, is clearly not working properly.
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@Ashley I just lost my contract BECAUSE of AB-5.
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Trump and Congress are not ignoring anything. They are trying to maximize profit, people don’t count. Tampering with the interest rates didn’t work out too well. They aren’t yet ready to think about people yet, just the profits...the vanishing profits...
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Proud to work for a company (a Fortune 5 company in the health care industry) that emailed all employees today to state that anyone who becomes ill should work from home — and if they can’t work from home, they should contact HR so they can work out leave and ensure they get paid during that leave. Refreshing.
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One thing to bear in mind is we are now reaping what we've sown. American consumers for years have clamored for low prices and indeed when adjusted for inflation the costs of most consumer goods have gone down, sometimes dramatically.
The problem is to achieve those low prices costs have to be contained. That means lower pay, fewer (if any) benefits or sending jobs overseas. Yes, corporate greed also plays a very big part in this and needs to be put in check but people also need to recognize that their desire for low prices, sales and bargains does come at a cost to their fellow citizens.
(see also: tiny airline seats)
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@Cyclocrosser Henry Ford paid his factories workers some of the highest wages offered at that time. He said he wanted all of his employees to be able to buy his cars. It's a simple principle American manufacturers have forgotten.
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I cannot agree with this enough! We need mandatory paid sick leave now for all workers as a coronavirus continment measure—it’s essential and it will have enormous benefits, including increasing public trust which is necessary for the trials of quarantines, closures, and reduced public services that may occur. PAID SICK LEAVE WILL SAVE LIVES. Period.
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Trump cares about himself and the market. I voted for him. Please vote for someone else.
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@Mixilplix Is that what you really believe? Why don't you tell us what the "market" is, because I suspect you don't have a clue.
@Mixilplix
Why did you vote for him? (Just curious--not asking in a cynical way)
I accept your apology
3
Riding the commuter train today I found myself near a middle aged fellow who was obviously sick and congested. The other passengers and I did our best to put distance between ourselves and him but there was only so far we could go on the crowded train. Since he was sick I wondered why didn't he just stay home from work today? Then I realized that perhaps he just didn't have that option, maybe he didn't have sick leave or medical insurance either. He must work each day to get a day's pay. I agree, the best treatment for a contagious virus is paid sick leave and universal comprehensive health insurance. Should the corona virus strike our nation let the US Congress and the President enact a law that gives all of us the healthcare that we need and a month's paid sick leave, or whatever amount of time is calculated as the time needed to recover from the illness.
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@tony Congress can enact all sorts of laws. But unless the Senate takes them up and brings them to the floor for a vote, nothing happens. Just as nothing in any arena of legislation has happened under Mitch McConnell. Perhaps KY needs an outbreak of Coronavirus so that voters there start to think about the dinosaurs they're electing.
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@tony Good idea. But he/they won't because they only care about themselves and their donors (corporations).
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American innovation needs to collide with American integrity. Hundreds of Americans will likely be facing self isolation and hours confined to their homes. Yes stock in Netflix may continue to increase, but the newfound downtime hours could easily be leveraged to create a new mandate for reform. Call your legislators, draft a plan, document your needs (childcare, sick leave, declining revenues) and coalesce on social media to create new initiatives and groups with the strength (and solutions) to incite change. Call an elderly neighbor, create an app that allows collaborative sharing of needed resources (schools will close...have college students offer online tutoring/support to younger students, high schoolers can reach out to international/domestic peers and begin cultural exchanges/learn about each other’s situation. Can you imagine if 10th graders quarantined in Iowa, Brooklyn, Italy, the UK, and San Antonio actually got to know each other through school sponsored Skype sessions?)
We have an opportunity to create something new as we hope the virus finds its end. Let’s not squander it.
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@Leanin left "Can you imagine if 10th graders quarantined in Iowa, Brooklyn, Italy, the UK, and San Antonio actually got to know each other through school sponsored Skype sessions?)"
This has already been happening. My daughter started at a new school last year. Before the school year started I asked if she was nervous about going to a new school where she didn't have any friends. She informed me she had already made several friends at her new school even though she'd never set foot in the place. I asked her how and she simply responded with "Fortnite".
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The solution is in the letters: UBI. Universal Basic Income would relieve the agonizing choice between working sick or penury at home. There was a candidate for that. Pity he’s not still in the race.
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@Michael Altshuler : in what way? UBI would not prevent the coronavirus. UBI does not give anyone Universal Health Care. UBI does not give you paid sick says.
Having an extra $1000 a month would be nice, but many people would simply spend it on luxuries or on junk -- cigarettes, lotto tickets, booze, fast food -- and then it would be gone. This is what happens with welfare checks and food stamps! and why those programs never end up helping anybody out of poverty.
Also: $12,000 a year is one thing in Hazard, Kentucky -- maybe enough to scrape by -- but it is chump change in San Francisco or Manhattan, where it wouldn't even make a dent in the high rents and cost of living.
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Based upon evidence out of China it seems Corona virus has show itself to affect the elderly, most of whom are not employed here or there. Also, there seem to be many mild or non-symptomatic cases in the under 50 cohort where there are carriers/spreaders who may have no idea they carry the disease. Maybe paid sick leave is a good idea in general but it is not clear at all that it will help us on this problem.
8
Who takes care of the elderly who get sick? Their middle aged children, who likely are employed and would desperately need that sick leave.
Given the nature of this pandemic, paid leave makes great sense. But, it has to cover all working Americans, including those working as consultants - who don’t get benefits of any kind. Unemployment benefits must be extended accordingly as well. It would be infinitely more expensive to expose all Americans to this Chinese infection, than to support people while the virus remains a threat. Imagine how subway systems as that of NYC could wreck havoc on an unsuspecting public.
20
@Ted Kudos to you for mentioning unemployment benefits being extended - I was laid off last fall and my benefits are expiring in early April and I must do some type of temp work once that happens. I am concerned about what will happen if companies close or require their regular workers to work from home, and I therefore cannot perform any type of temp work if this situation deteriorates. Luckily, I do have Obamacare insurance. I have been interviewing for jobs, but am concerned that the entire hiring process will be delayed if employers close for any length of time. I'm hoping that the Labor Dept. will consider those who have NO employer currently, and no unemployment benefits during a potential pandemic. I am nervous about having absolutely NO income for several weeks.
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There are millions of people who are going to be faced with much smaller incomes or no incomes at all for weeks because of this. That is going to cause long lasting damage to the economy unless something is done.
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@Ted Subway. Consider every elevator you enter.
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And all the 'gig' workers. The independent contractors as they are called by the IRS. No boss, no benefits, no company that gives any leave whatsoever. Uber, Lyft, Taskrabbit workers. And all those delivery drivers working for Amazon with their ancient cars.
What do we do about that?
141
I worked in Europe. I asked how much time they got off for sick leave, as they already had 4 weeks paid vacation. I was told, when they get sick, they stay home. Basically, unlimited sick days, but subject to management review.
American Exceptionalism says if you are sick, you go to work to make as many other co-workers sick, too. No American want to stay home when they are ill. No American company, especially restaurants, want sick people to stay home. This is what I learned in 40 years in corporate America. This is what makes America Great, the willingness to sacrifice, not laziness. This is what all America votes for.
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@gratis I can't tell if this is sarcasm. Productivity in Europe is as high if not higher than the U.S., because their people aren't miserable from lack of vacation and sick for half the year because they get days to rest. And yeah plenty of Americans want to stay home when they're ill. And their coworkers want them to as well!
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We need Medicaid backstop for all who work. Maybe if we had a true labor party...
40
Regarding Trump’s demand that the U.S. should have the lowest interest rates in the world - he’s just confirmed he’s leveraged to the hilt because only someone who places emphasis on borrowing and not saving sees the world from this view.
Wouldn’t it be nice if our savings accounts could begin to earn again?
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Does the COVID-19 preparation and prevention Bill create a fund to pay sick leave to all as needed across the board? That plus a legal enforceable requirement for all employers to pay sick leave and get fully reimbursed on an as needed basis, with strict requirement that anyone with the symptoms or exposure to a sick person is not just allowed, but required to put in for sick leave and stay home, and employers must be required to take their word for it. Malingering will happen but better a few people getting away with chiseling than spreading the virus.
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The hospitals can't handle the additional influx of sick patients, my mother is in a NYC hospital and it's very chaotic.
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After decades of the US government, both Republicans and Democrats, bending to the desires and whims of monied interests, I have no faith that the feds will do the right thing even in the face of a pandemic and mandate that all employers provide sick leave to all employees. Punishing lower and middle income workers is baked into our society and, sadly, that will never change.
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Wrong. It will change. It will slowly and progressively worsen.
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@Melvin Firman You are even more pessimistic than I but, yes, you are right.
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@Tres Leches
Yes, CEOs and high management get sick leave. It is the lower level slaves that have to lose wages and pay for an illness which they did not choose.
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It's laughable when public health officials tell people to stay home when they are sick and to visit a doctor. Who is paying for medical care? People don't have sick leave and they don't have medical care.
To respond adequately to this pandemic we need not only sick leave but guaranteed health care.
M4A!
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Staying home is what you do when you have a flu. You need specialized health care if it develops to pneumonia.
This coronavirus may be treated - supposedly- with a cocktail of anti-flu and HIV drugs, but only if one has already been tested positive. Until potential infected individuals become symptomatic,’, staying at home and restraining from social - and intimate- contact may be the best safeguard, for both families and communities. Thus the need for a paid sick leave.
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@cb77 Put Pence on speed dial. Until June, he has the answers. He's the man. After he's thrown under the bus, Nikki Haley will step up. She's smooth, has an eye to the future, and no doubt has the solution to the coronavirus problem.
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@alabreabreal Nikki "Half-a-Loaf" Haley said that companies with a union workforce should stay out of South Carolina when she was governor. Her logic? Higher wages that union workers receive would poison the water for South Carolina employers. Nikki Half-a-Loaf is the kind of "leadership" that has kept southern states employees at the very bottom of the food chain and at the very top of government dependence for wage subsidies.
27
It is unconscionable that the US does not have a paid sick leave. But now it is scandalous. I just learned that in Israel the government announced that people who are staying in self-quarantine because of the coronavirus are entitled to full pay and cannot be fired. Come on, America, do the right thing! And where are those free test kits?
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This statement is important because America has vowed to protect Israel’s right to exist at all costs, which I agree with, but what is Israel if not Israelis? Sure there is land involved but what is land without the people? And this is what allows the justified confusion to flow into our brains: America appears to not be valuing its own people all that much.
The level of uncaring is unbelievable. If one considers that the state of Israel arose out of the ashes of the brutal Holocaust and Germany, the oppressing nation that caused the Holocaust, arose to become a nation where the people, all people, are valued, then how could it be that the USA, which was victorious against Germany (with other nations), has remained numbed to the needs if its own citizens in these critical labor-law areas? It blows the mind!
The late great economist, Benjamin Freedman, always said that a free capitalist economy, wherein government mostly doesn’t regulate the people, has been proven to be the best method of governing throughout history. His explanations as to why can make one beam with pride at what Americans have accomplished, but contrary to Mr. Freedman’s wisdom, which I mostly agree with, has been this human struggle we have faced within humanity over the eons and it still hasn’t left our side: Those who HAVE often not showing compassion to those who HAVE NOT.
The bottom line is: our current president said he would make health care affordable—he didn’t.
MAGA is definitely not his thing.
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Irony: All that US foreign aid going to Israel.
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Yes, and since we pay a good chunk of Israel’s defense system, they can gleefully do this while laughing all the way to their central bank!
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This is exactly why companies are rushing to automate their operations as much as possible.
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@Jim
I hope the robots are good customers.
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