Fired for Covid absences: inspectors arrive. But without legal protection for post-virus pathologies: welcome after 180 days at home

Minister Catalfo sends the inspectors in the Lodi area. They will be, according to what the Fattoquotidiano.it, to verify the history of a supermarket clerk fired after 180 days fight Covid, despite having an Inail-recognized accident certificate in your pocket. The ministry reiterates that the “Cura Italia” has inserted a specific rule to exclude sick days Covid-19 of absences. In reality, the story is more complex and it is opening a certain debate in the scientific and legal world, which could also give rise to different measures than those they have had until now. protected workers during the pandemic. The Law April 24, 2020 n. 27 in fact, he equated the quarantine period with the illness by deducting it from the 180 days after which the dismissal is triggered. The employee subjected to “active surveillance” or “stay-at-home trust” could stay home, receive his salary, and take leave without taking the trap of absent days. And in fact, “saving” the supermarket worker will not be so much the Cura Italia as the Inail certificate that recognized the work accident.

The problem remains for everyone else, the “post-Covizzati”, An army of unknown size, but potentially relevant, which is also organizing itself in associations to demand protection at work from the absences imposed by the consequences of the virus. Even Lombardy, and this says a lot, has decided to help this audience of people by expanding the free visits and control tests. At the clinical level, it is in fact recognized that a large number of health problems related to covid lengthen the period of illness, bringing those affected closer to the threshold of dismissal. However, the law does not regulate it differently from the others. “After six months of absence, the employee can be fired for just cause, as happens, unfortunately, to those with a tumor”, confirms the president of the Italian Labor Lawyers Association. Aldo bottini. Problem: Covid is not a disease like any other.

At the time of the first decrees it was not known, today it is widely documented that many people who have overcome the infection later develop real diseases that affect the cardiac system, cardiocirculatory and pulmonary. Now it is a question of evaluating this aspect, because when the first measures were issued, the time of illness was limited and the proportion of emergency measures was different. The legislator was urgent to keep people at home so that they did not get infected without starving. Therefore, the solution of equating quarantine with illness without activating the layoff countdown. The current scenario has completely changed. And the legislator will have to face the problem.

“It is absolutely necessary,” he says. Vittorio Agnoletto, occupational physician and member of Democratic Medicine. “That it didn’t happen is serious. People who have survived a deadly illness, who have already suffered trauma and stress of all kinds, cannot live in the nightmare of a layoff that amounts to being thrown into another disastrous condition. It seems very strange to me that the legislator has not yet intervened, it is time for him to recognize the exceptionality of the disease. No one would be scandalized, I think, given that there are already some patients who protest for this protection. Which is not like the others in fact. In what other situation have we experienced a situation of national blockade, stuck at home? Wasn’t the pandemic like a war? The legislative measures in recent months have been extraordinary in everything from work to school. “Well then, I don’t think you will do anything subversive or wrong if you acknowledge this extraordinary also in the clinical setting. “After all, it already happened. At the time ofAIDS emergency Ad hoc legislation was enacted allowing those infected to avoid incarceration. “It will not be impossible to do this for Covid as well. And if the principle were extended to other diseases such as cancer, guaranteeing similar forms of protection, it would only be a gain for civilization.”