TORONTO —
As COVID-19 spreads around the world, Canadian companies are reviewing policies around employee travel and when to stop them coming into the workplace, in a bid to stem the spread of the new coronavirus.
The move has triggered questions around workers’ rights in these scenarios and how employees can recoup lost wages.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” employment law expert Daniel Lublin told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday.
“In the current context of what we’re experiencing with the potential outbreak, employers are within their rights to ensure that any employee who has symptoms of coronavirus, has travelled to an infected area or been in close personal contact with someone who’s been to an infected area is prevented from attending the workplace and possibly infecting the other employees. “
Some Canadian employers are already telling staff planning overseas trips to self-quarantine for weeks upon return to minimize the spread of COVID-19.
Manulife Financial Corp. has told employees who have been to China, South Korea, Iran and Italy to isolate themselves for 14 days, according to The Canadian Press.
Meanwhile, Home Depot of Canada has stopped all employee travel to and from Asia and Italy until further notice and any employees who have returned from either place in the last two weeks are being told to stay home for two weeks before returning to work.
“When this becomes a problem from a legal perspective is when employers overreach and cross the line and start to stereotype or target certain employees based on race, religious background, ethnicity or place of origin,” Lublin said.
“When questions are designed to identify information from certain groups of people, that can be discriminatory.”
Lublin said in the current circumstances, employers have much more leeway to ensure the health and safety of employees.
“It would be a problem if certain individuals are targeted, sent home, asked not to attend the workplace or even forced to work remotely if they have no possible basis of infecting anybody else in the workplace,” he said.
Sick employees are not entitled to salary and lost wages from their employer, but there are mechanisms to recover some pay if unable to work, Lublin said.
“We saw with the SARS outbreak that health and safety workers were able to claim workplace safety and insurance compensation, so there can be some means to try to recover pay, but it doesn’t necessarily come directly from the employer.”
Meanwhile, in the U.K. self-isolating workers will get statutory sick pay from the first day off work, rather than the fourth, to help contain the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. The emergency legislation means people will receive an extra £40, or around C$68.
Employees in Canada who don’t feel safe going into an office have a reasonable right to refuse unsafe work conditions if there’s a likelihood of infection, Lublin explained.
“If somebody is unreasonably refusing to work because of the potential of catching coronavirus when there is no basis for that, that would be unreasonable,” he said.
“But for someone on the frontlines, for example take someone in a high contact situation with a high volume of travellers, if there’s an outbreak in Canada, work refusal may very well be reasonable.”
The federal government has issued travel advisories for several countries where COVID-19 has posed an especially serious problem.
Canada already had significant travel advisories in place for Iran, which was the highest number of coronavirus-related deaths outside of China. The government said this week that the new coronavirus is another reason to skip non-essential trips to Iran.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans can once again order COVID-19 tests, without being charged, sent straight to their homes.
The U.S. government reopened the program on Thursday, allowing any household to order up to four at-home COVID nasal swab kits through the website, covidtests.gov. The tests will begin shipping, via the United States Postal Service, as soon as next week.
The website has been reopened on the heels of a summer COVID-19 virus wave and heading into the fall and winter respiratory virus season, with health officials urging Americans to get an updated COVID-19 booster and their yearly flu shot.
“Before you visit with your family and friends this holiday season, take a quick test and help keep them safe from COVID-19,” U.S. Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell said in a statement.
U.S. regulators approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine that is designed to combat the recent virus strains and, they hope, forthcoming winter ones, too. Vaccine uptake is waning, however. Most Americans have some immunity from prior infections or vaccinations, but under a quarter of U.S. adults took last fall’s COVID-19 shot.
Using the swab, people can detect current virus strains ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season and the holidays. Over-the-counter COVID-19 at-home tests typically cost around $11, as of last year. Insurers are no longer required to cover the cost of the tests.
Before using any existing at-home COVID-19 tests, you should check the expiration date. Many of the tests have been given an extended expiration from the date listed on the box. You can check on the Food and Drug Administration’s website to see if that’s the case for any of your remaining tests at home.
Since COVID-19 first began its spread in 2020, U.S. taxpayers have poured billions of dollars into developing and purchasing COVID-19 tests as well as vaccines. The Biden administration has given out 1.8 billion COVID-19 tests, including half distributed to households by mail. It’s unclear how many tests the government still has on hand.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans can once again order free COVID-19 tests sent straight to their homes.
The U.S. government reopened the program on Thursday, allowing any household to order up to four at-home COVID nasal swab kits through the website, covidtests.gov. The tests will begin shipping, via the United States Postal Service, as soon as next week.
The website has been reopened on the heels of a summer COVID-19 virus wave and heading into the fall and winter respiratory virus season, with health officials urging Americans to get an updated COVID-19 booster and their yearly flu shot.
U.S. regulators approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine that is designed to combat the recent virus strains and, they hope, forthcoming winter ones, too. Vaccine uptake is waning, however. Most Americans have some immunity from prior infections or vaccinations, but under a quarter of U.S. adults took last fall’s COVID-19 shot.
Using the swab, people can detect current virus strains ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season and the holidays. Over-the-counter COVID-19 at-home tests typically cost around $11, as of last year. Insurers are no longer required to cover the cost of the tests.
Since COVID-19 first began its spread in 2020, U.S. taxpayers have poured billions of dollars into developing and purchasing COVID-19 tests as well as vaccines. The Biden administration has given out 1.8 billion COVID-19 tests, including half distributed to households by mail. It’s unclear how many tests the government still has on hand.
TORONTO – A coalition of disability rights groups says it is launching a Charter challenge against a part of Canada’s law on medical assistance in dying.
The group, which also includes two individual plaintiffs, argues that what’s known as track two of the MAID law has resulted in premature deaths.
Under the law, patients whose natural deaths are not reasonably foreseeable but whose condition leads to intolerable suffering can apply for a track-two assisted death.
The coalition says track two of the MAID law has had a direct effect on the lives of people with disabilities and argues medically assisted death should only be available to those whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable.
The executive vice-president of Inclusion Canada – which is part of the coalition – says there has been an alarming trend where people with disabilities are seeking assisted death due to social deprivation, poverty and a lack of essential supports.
Krista Carr says those individuals should instead be supported in order to live better lives.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2024.
