Does my work need to let us know if someone in the office tests positive?

The Quarantine Zone
1

I work in an office of about 50 people. Two women have been conspicuously absent for the last week. One of them in the receptionist (who has the most interaction with the public) and one is a file clerk, who also functions as the back-up receptionist.

This is a small enough office that everyone knows everyone, and many are friends out of the office. Everyone “knows” or “has heard” that both women tested positive for COVID19. Several people have specifically asked the administration if it is true that SOMEONE (we don’t need to know who) has tested positive. They have explicitly said no. Now some people are at high risk of complications, and would like to know if they need to take extra precautions. But we are just told “wash your hand, wear a mask, and stay socially distant from others”

I understand the need for medical privacy, so there is no need to name names, but shouldn’t they be telling us if it’s the case that we have coronavirus cases in the office?

2

Where do you work? It probably varies by jurisdiction.

3

Yes, of course they should be telling you. Employers have a duty of care to employees and, if they know you have been exposed to a dangerous infectious disease in the course of your work, they should tell you so that you can get tested/be alert for symptoms/practice rigorous isolation from vulnerable people who may be in your own circle/etc. Plus, it’s in their interests that you should do these things; the last thing they want is their own workforce to be decimated by a CV10 cluster.

For that matter, the two women concerned, if they are infected, should be doing their own contact tracing. But normally you would do this by telling your employer “Hey! I’ve got CV19! You should tell my work contacts!” It would never occur to them that their employer would conceal the matter. Why would any employer do that?

So, bottom line; for many and various reasons, your employer should tell you. In fact, the reasons are so many and various, I struggle to believe that they wouldn’t tell you. The parsimonious explanation for why they haven’t told you is that what “everybody knows” and “everybody has heard” is wrong, and the women concerned have not been diagnosed with CV19.

(If it turns out that they have been, and your employer knew but never told you, start looking for another job. That’s not a safe employer to work for.)

4

How would the employer know?

5

Maybe the two employees requested COVID-related sick leave?

6

(a) Presumably anyone taking more than a day or two’s sick leave has to produce a medical certificate, or otherwise satisfy the employer that they are ill? The nature of the illness may emerge at that point.

(b) Anyone diagnosed with an infectious disease is going to be told by their medical advisers to inform contacts who may be at risk, including work contacts. So they are quite likely to tell their employer that they have CV19, so that their employer can alert work colleagues who need to know that they may have been exposed.

(c) According to the OP, everyone in the workplace already “knows” that these workers have been diagnosed with CV19. I struggle to believe that the employer is unaware that everyone “knows” this, and that alone should motivate them to make the appropriate enquiries of the workers, if they haven’t already volunteered the fact that they have been diagnosed.

7

I don’t know about the OP, but here, even a likely case of COVID (sans a +ve test) is deemed sufficient to shut the whole place down for 2 weeks.
So, my conspiracy theory.

  1. Was your office shut during the lockdown and for how long?
  2. If so maybe the management doesn’t want to risk another lockdown.
8

Maybe, but maybe not COVID. People get other contagious diseases, coincidentally have minor surgery in the same week, or run off together. I heard that I had broken my hip surfing during a conference; the facilitator of my presentation, who did not know me, was shocked when I arrived for my talk with no injuries and no history of surfing.

9

I’ve never had that burden anywhere I’ve worked. I’m sure it’s different in different offices, but no company I’ve worked for in the past 35 years has ever required that. It might have been on the books, but it was never enforced.

10

It could be that they were both exposed to someone with covid and they are taking precautionary time off, rather than actually having a positive test.

My wife was in a grocery store last week that we found out yesterday had a test positive employee. My wife went for a test yesterday but her work wants her home for two weeks regardless of the result. I had to cancel my return to work today - they want me to stay home until a negative test result comes in.

11

With the lack of widespread testing an contact tracing, it doesn’t really matter if the workplace informs the employees or not. The other people in the workplace can’t assume that those two coworkers were the only CV19 positive people they came in contact with. In fact, with the long incubation period and potentially asymptomatic infection, the assumption should be that all coworkers are positive and the employees should take appropriate precautions. It could be that a handful of the employees are currently positive, but they’re still at the office because their symptoms are so mild that they don’t feel the need to get tested.

12

How would contact tracing help there? Basically, they would have “traced” all the employees since they probably all had contact with the receptionists. So it’s the same as your “assume everyone has it”.

13

With no doubt, they should inform all the employees who may potentially contact with contaminated persons. And all potentially contaminated employes should stay home for a an incubation period.

14

The guidance I’ve been hearing has changed a lot since this started.
If people are socially distancing and wearing a mask and washing hands regularly self quarantining for two weeks isn’t called for unless there is direct contact.
I also agree that the people staying home may have tested positive, or been in direct contact with someone who tested positive or have underlying condition that puts them at risk. None of that is something the employer could come out and say specifically about any individual.
Even if you were told generically for a positive test the treat everyone as exposed should mean you’re not doing anything different.

15

I would tend to agree with this assessment. Saying that the missing employees are not positive when they knowingly are is different then saying nothing when they have not told us they are positive and are self-quarantining.
My employer pays us to self quarantine only when they tell us to stay home. That can be either via symptoms or a contact trace from the county. Otherwise any tests create a no pay wait until results situation.

16

This would be my suspicion-- or they even could have had a negative test, but been told to quarantine for a certain period of time, and retest.

I mean, if I were exposed to you at noon today, and then at 5pm, you texted me to say you had a positive test, I doubt it would do me any good to run out an be tested ASAP, because the test would be negative. I should still quarantine, though, and wait some period of time (I have no idea what it is, but I’m sure at the very least it’s two days) to be tested.

With HIV, you may need about six weeks to test positive, and for some people, it’s even 3 months. But it only takes a week or so before you can be infecting other people.

I’m just guessing that you can infect people with COVID-19 before you can test positive, but it’s true with so many other illnesses, I wouldn’t trust a test given in fewer than 48 hours after exposure.

This would allow the admin to truthfully say that “No one has tested positive,” because you have not asked “Has anyone been exposed?” or “Does anyone have it?” or “Is anyone under quarantine for it?” Those questions could elicit different answers, if management is truthful.

Personally, I wouldn’t push, though. Stay home if you are worried. Practice safe work. Do your best to lessen your chance of exposure as much as you can. You may “know” one of these women was exposed, and be all worried about that, while being overly casual around another worker who could be just as exposed, you simply don’t know it. Be safe around everyone, but don’t be paranoid, and stop harassing management, whose hands are tied, and whom you would not want giving your health information out freely, so don’t expect them to give you someone else’s.

17

I have some more information. One of the women has COVID19 and is quite sick from it. The other tested positive, but has quite mild symptoms.

My work has announced once that in the event anyone gets the virus (they aren’t saying if anyone has), they will privately tell anyone who has been in close contact with them for over 15 minutes for the last several days. I wasn’t notified, so I guess I don’t meet the criteria. But the receptionist handles all incoming mail, hands people paperwork, etc. And I’ve certainly chatted with her casually.

I guess it’s hard for the work to know how to balance the sick person’s medical privacy with the safety of the rest of the office.

18

It doesn’t sound like there is any privacy to protect, since by your own account everybody in the workplace already knows.

The employer can advise staff that they have been in contact with an infected person in the workplace, without saying who that person was. While everybody may assume that they know who it is, the employer is not responsible for that assumption. (Note that if you get a notification like this from your employer, the infected person need not have been any of your workmates; it could have been a visitor to the workplace.)

19

Privacy laws are a bit of a luxury in the middle of a pandemic.

20

Wouldn’t this be a HIPA issue? (from the employers standpoint)