What does the law say about ‘quarantine leave’?

Despite washing your hands assiduously while trying to avoid Covid-19, some unmentionable has coughed sputum all over you and aside from feeling queasy at walking through someone else’s lung mist, you wonder if you should stay at home for a few days … just in case.

While the possibility at this stage of more Covid-19 infections is seemingly still low outside of the nine recently returned from Italy, how companies manage employees sick leave is important.

“Within the context of Covid-19, there is a clear obligation on the employer to manage the risk of contamination in the workplace,” a group of Webber Wentzel specialist lawyers said.

Once that is done, what happens should you be declared ill?

“If a medical doctor places an employee in quarantine, the employee should receive a medical certificate and, in such circumstances, the employee will be on sick leave,” the group said.

“In the case of compulsory quarantine (i.e. quarantine required and enforced by the employer), the employee will not be on sick leave unless a medical certificate has been issued to the employee, placing the employee in quarantine.

“An employer may require an employee to be quarantined if the employee recently travelled to an affected country, or if the employee displays symptoms of the illness at work.”

The law firm suggested an employer “could consider such an employee to be on special paid leave away from the office [depending on the nature of the work performed by the employee].”

The firm noted that if it was not possible for the employee to work from home, the employer would not be able to deduct the period of quarantine as sick leave or annual leave as it was made compulsory by the employer. This would be a form of special paid leave.

“In the case of voluntary quarantine (i.e. quarantine at the request of the employee for precautionary purposes), the employee is not sick and therefore, sick leave should not be imposed,” the group stated. “If employees are forced to take unpaid leave or annual leave, they may opt not to self-quarantine. We therefore recommend this should also be treated as special paid leave.”

If an employee requesting self-quarantine could work from home, no leave would be needed.

The group noted if the illness spread across the country, “employees may request to be placed in quarantine to minimise risk of infection. In this instance, the employer will need to consider implementing remote working”.

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