Seems like focusing on blaming individuals rather than: - Employers don't allow telecommuting. - Employers with draconian sick leave policies. - No paid sick leave for the majority of jobs (and or strict limits). - Limited access to testing to know if you have Covid-19 (Vs. a common cold). Which is significant with e.g. Walmarts new policies which ONLY allow Covid-19 paid sick leave. Ultimately we set up a system whe…
That said, in the US with its tradition of completely ignoring all needs of employees, there are a lot of people for who this advice would amount to quitting their job, and it's pretty obvious a lot of people can't afford that.
Employers should definitely do their part by encouraging people to work from home, and paying sick people to stay home so they don't infect their co-workers. I honestly don't understand what kind of employers would want an epidemic to spread in their offices.
Reading about American employers is baffling compared to my own. Everybody is encouraged to work from home. In face, every week half of the company is required to work from home. If anyone in your household has a cold, you have to work from home for two weeks.
It may be a slight overreaction, but that's vastly better than just ignoring the problem. From everything I hear, I seriously fear COVID-19 is going to wreak havoc in the US. They seem to have fine-tuned their country to be as vulnerable as possible to this: Many people with no or poor health insurance, no sick days, who are very easy to fire, will feel forced to go to work no matter how sick they are. Then there's Trump firing the pandemic crisis team, a dramatic shortage of tests, and nobody seems to be in charge over this thing, or even know anything at all.