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Human Resources & Staff Management

What should I do if I have an employee report that he/she is sick with respiratory symptoms?

Follow CDC guidelines for managing employees who are sick. Decisions should be coordinated with your local health department, depending on the circumstances and how likely the employee is to be infected with COVID-19.

The CDC is encouraging all employers to consider how best to decrease the spread of COVID-19 and lower the impact in their workplace in one or more of the following areas:

  • Reduce transmission among employees,
  • Maintain healthy business operations, and
  • Maintain a healthy work environment.

Employers should actively encourage sick employees to stay home:

  • Employees who have symptoms (i.e., fever, cough, or shortness of breath) should notify their supervisor and stay home.
  • Sick employees should follow CDC-recommended steps. Employees should not return to work until the CDC’s criteria are met, in consultation with healthcare providers and state and local health departments.
  • Employees who are well but who have a sick family member at home with COVID-19 should notify their supervisor and follow CDC recommended precautions.

All sick employees with respiratory symptoms (fever, SOB, cough) should follow CDC guidelines for self-monitoring and home isolation until COVID-19 is ruled out. For example, if you have SOB, cough, and fever, you are to assume it is COVID-19 until proven otherwise (positive flu test or negative COVID-19 lab test). Refer to Curi’s COVID-19 Process for Employee Exposures.

The CDC has developed these guidelines for when it is safe for employees to return to work.

News & Knowledge
All Curi recommendations are based on current CDC criteria at the time of publication. CDC guidance for SARS-CoV-2 infection may, or may not, be adopted by state and local health departments to respond to rapidly changing local circumstances. Providers should always check with their local health department to see if the CDC’s guidance on any given topic has been modified (particularly if more restrictive) from the CDC’s recommended guidelines. Follow this link https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/healthdirectories/index.html for contact information to your state/local health department. If local recommendations vary from those of the CDC, and you are unsure what recommendations to follow, then it is safer to follow the more restrictive guidelines/recommendations.