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Comment by radicalbyte | Hacker News Reader

There's a flu going around in The Netherlands right now, it progresses like this:

- Day 1: Fever, fatigue and muscle pain with a dry itchy cough.

- Day 2+: Nausea and diarrhea can be experienced as well as the first day symptoms.

It takes about a week for the worst of the symptoms to die down however the stomach ache, cough and light tiredness last weeks.

My entire family and most of my son's class at school has had it and they're all still recovering. My wife is, after 3 weeks, still really ill. Probably because she's working full time and breastfeeding.

This is what makes the Corona-virus hard: at the start the symptoms are extremely similar to existing flu. Unless the case is extremely severe most people won't see a doctor let alone a hospital.

I don't see how it can be stopped.

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> My wife is, after 3 weeks, still really ill. Probably because she's working full time

In my opinion it’s high time to call in sick. She is neither helping herself nor her coworkers by going to work.

If that's an option.

I lot of people cannot call in sick.

Being sick means being unpaid, and many people cannot afford to go unpaid.

Netherlands though, not the US. If they're anything like most of Europe then a doctors note is all you need to still be paid while sick more than 1-2 days.

I think it's even possible to get a sick leave from a business you own in some European countries.

But how about if you run the business on your own, and you're concerned that if you take two weeks off the business will lose many customers who won't come back?

(I was shocked when I saw the they put the name of the illness on the note. That's so far from my employers business that it should be illegal to even ask. Employees and consumers rights in Germany seem to be seriously limited.)

The note for your employer does not contain any information about the reason for the sick leave in Germany, the one for your health insurance does.

"(I was shocked when I saw the they put the name of the illness on the note. That's so far from my employers business that it should be illegal to even ask. Employees and consumers rights in Germany seem to be seriously limited.)"

You get multiple papers in Germany. The one without (!) diagnosis is for your employer.

You can buy insurance from it. It's generally there to cover you from being unable to work for a period of more than a week. So serious stuff.

As an employee the employer will have insurance but basically have to eat the cost of short sickness.

I'm a freelancer but I've chosen not to buy the insurance. It's very expensive and can survive on her income. I put the money I would have spent into a buffer.

It is an option (full pay, no black marks at work) for a lot of people. That was the setup for professionals in all large companies that I worked for and people would still come to work really sick and spread the good stuff around. Grrrr!

One of my colleagues literally apologized when he had to call out (with pneumonia) after coming in progressively more sick for a week. We have fully paid and (IMO) stigma-free sick leave, but nobody ever apologizes similarly for coming in sick and increasing the viral load of the office.

He said Netherlands, not USA

Not working while ill is a fundamental human right, and as such is implemented in all European jurisdictions. There are very, very few cases when you can't exercise this right.

Not wanting to is another issue though, but it's often irrational.

> Not working while ill is a fundamental human right, and as such is implemented in all European jurisdictions.

It's also implemented in all U.S. jurisdictions, for everyone except for prisoners: per the 13th Amendment, no-one not convicted of a crime can be forced to perform any work.

You left out the part where they don’t have to pay you and can fire you. Not the same as in Europe.

> Being sick means being unpaid, and many people cannot afford to go unpaid.

In Germany being sick means full payment by the employer for 6 weeks, after that you'll receive around 90% of your last net income by your healh insurance company for 72 weeks, after that slightly lower unemployment payments for another 12 month. So around 2.5 years of being sick are required until you're actually unpaid.

What is full payment if you are paid hourly?

You get paid as if you had worked the full amount of hours in your employment contract.

Zero-hour contracts are illegal in Germany.

So yeah you lose out on pay if you were planning on working overtime.

That's only for salaried employees. As a freelancer, you're generally out of luck AFAIK. (Unless you are a member of the Künstlersozialkasse or similar.)

That’s just a sad consequence of the paltry state of labor regulation in the US.

I was surprised to find this downvoted, as it's a harsh fact of life for many people, but not the majority of people. I should have said "For some people, being sick means...". The gist of the argument still applies: It is incorrect to assume everyone can afford to take a month off work when they are sick.

I'm in a European juristiction - the UK. We have reasonable labour protections here. But they don't protect everyone.

If you are self-employed, then taking time off means going unpaid. It's that simple. Zero income. I have been in that position. Took a month off due to flu once (not the current flu). Lost 1 month income.

There is a government system called "Statutory Sick Pay" (SSP), but it is not paid to the self-employed, and if it did it would only start after a few weeks.

If you are a "casual" worker, then taking time off also means going unpaid because you don't have a contract of employment or regular hours to refer to. Sucks to be you, but it's harsh reality for many.

For salaried workers, the employer pays salary for a while. But it's time limited, depending on the employer. Some are more generous than others. The less generous will switch over to Statuory Sick Pay, which is not much money. It is rarely enough to cover rent or mortgage, for example, let alone food and bills.

A lot of people are self-employed, casual workers, or have household bills exceeding SSP. Taking a few weeks off due to sickness has a serious financial impact for those people, unfortunately, and it is wrong to assume everyone can afford to do so.

Coming from the UK, it shocked me to learn that you basically get full pay for two years of sickness in The Netherlands. The protection is so much better than the UK's system.

It can be abused though: I know of several cases where people are ill for two years, miracuously get better, work a month, then get ill for another two years.

Overall it's preferable to the UK situation.

Like you though I'm a freelancer; you earn more for less net work time so it's good.

> Like you though I'm a freelancer; you earn more for less net work time so it's good.

I do too, but it is important to recognise that many people earn a lot less when freelancing than a typical salary. There are a lot of very poorly paid "self-employed" in the UK.

I've known freelancers in the UK paid less than £3 an hour, legally because "self-employed". Think things like Uber drivers, data entry on a "per document" basis or article writing "per word".

It is tough for them.

For perspective, that is less than half the legal minimum wage, and they have no sick pay, maternity, pension or other worker protections.

I am genuinely surprised people on HN think zero pay on sick days is unusual. So I'll quote from a BBC article:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51738837

    But TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said two million workers do not earn enough to qualify.

    Prospect union added that freelancers and self-employed people would continue to face "the dilemma of no pay or going to work when it may be putting their colleagues at risk".

    Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn asked Mr Johnson if the sick pay announcement would help those currently not eligible for statutory sick pay - such as those on zero hours contracts, or self-employed people.

I agree. However it's not possible: she's a pharmacist and because of the flu they're both really busy and low staffed. As long as she can just about handle it she works.

They all get it every year anyway because they're constantly coming into contact with sick people so there's less benefit for staying at home.

Seems like pharmacists, who are constantly in contact with sick people, should be the first to not work if they're sick.

Pharmacists clearly seem like a huge potential vector for disease transmission.

The pharmacy itself should have policies preventing sick employees from attending work and have generous paid sick leave.

We could reduce disease transmission and thus social cost dramatically if we reduced transmission in medical contexts (e.g. hospitals are one of the main places people GET sick -- from other patients).

It would ultimately save money if there was overstaffing requirements and stringent no sick staff allowed in any medical context.

The problem is that cost reduction is at a societal level while individual firms don't have the incentive to do this. But socialized healthcare systems should be able to solve this easily.

They do have generous sick leave, that's why there are so many people ill at the moment. Sure they could have more staff, but someone has to pay for that. In her situation her staffing levels are above the norms used by Den Haag (we put patient service above profit).

I really wish that the situation could be better but unfortunately the huge cuts made since the financial crisis have made that impossible.

Doctors have the same problem.

> My wife is, after 3 weeks, still really ill.

It should be illegal to go to work sick with easily transmittable diseases.

Did you and your family get the flu vaccine this season?

Not OP, but all of relatives in the Twin Cities (MN USA) got a similar bad flu, and all got the flu shots. I do believe they missed one this year.

It's Swine Flu. We have it in our country too. Flu is ok. Swine Flu is bad. Corona is bad. Coinfection of Swine Flu + Corona is super bad because it causes HIV like symptoms, so it's better to be vaccinated against A H1N1 Flu, to worry about 1 virus only.

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