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Comment by indecisive_user | Hacker News Reader

>anyone with symptoms to self isolate for a week, regardless of positive test.

In an ideal world we would already be doing this. I know that some people have to show up to work even if they're sick, but even at my job where we have unlimited sick leave, and are encouraged to use it, people still show up coughing and sniffling.

I don't get it.

If your employer encourages you to work from home when you're sick, and you're actually sick, please work from home! No one wants to catch your disease, whether it's Coronavirus or "just" the common cold.

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This is a special case of course and I work for a company where we are told to work from home right now regardless of symptoms or not.

However when it comes to the common cold that is something that will be going of for weeks and return several times for some people, just the light symptoms. No fever but some coughing and sneezing.

For some job roles and in some companies with good culture it works great to work home but for a lot you cannot really be home for like 6 weeks every winter because you are missing out too much or are not effective enough.

I disagree that the solution to "missing out too much" when you're sick is to go to work anyway and risk infecting co-workers.

According to the CDC, the average adult gets the common cold 2-3 times per year with symptoms lasting 7-10 days[1]. So it's more like 2-4 weeks per year, but I would imagine that number would decrease if you didn't have people coming into work sick in the first place (again, I recognize not every job will allow for this). Hong Kong's flu season apparently ended early this year due to the self isolation of sick people[2].

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/features/rhinoviruses/index.html

[2] https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307b...

> know that some people have to show up to work even if they're sick, but even at my job where we have unlimited sick leave, and are encouraged to use it, people still show up coughing and sniffling.

yes, the 'overzealous hero employee' archetype is very real. The Coronavirus aside I just wish this would generally become socially unacceptable. Not just during a pandemic but in general sacrificing health or sleep or some reasonable balance of life for work should not be celebrated.

I agree but there are millions who literally cannot afford to stay home — or they risk making rent and buying food. We must solve this problem at once. Pandemics aren’t gonna go anyway.

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