After Receiving COVID-19, You Can Return To Work After 10 Days Without Investigation – What You Experience At Work After Suffering From This Illness

There are fears and discrimination among employees

Inga Ruginienė, President of the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation, confirms that employees returning to work early after COVID-19 experience discrimination at work and these situations are not uncommon.

“We really had to face it and we were also very outraged. We had a specific case where a person received a sick leave certificate for a week, stayed at home for a week because there was a mild form, mild symptoms. They seemed to disappear, Nobody continued with the test, but they told him to go to work. It is thanks to God that the employer was conscious and allowed himself to work from home, he told him to stay at home. But those things surprise me. We already had experience in the spring to test even a healthy person, for whom the virus remained for up to 2 months, ”says I. Ruginienė.

He said he had no information that rapidly healthy patients could no longer be infected with the coronavirus.

“In the spring, I remember very clearly, I wasn’t even discharged from the hospital until the test came back negative. Now it is not clear why not repeat the test. Doctors, if they are convinced that a person is really healthy and cannot infect, must explain this to the public. Because we have no explanation, and we have already had several cases in which we have even told a person to ask the doctors why they are not getting tested, and the doctors did not explain anything to that person, “says I. Ruginienė.

According to her, this leads to extremely stressful situations in the workplace.

“Another thing is the attitude of the work team towards that person, nobody talks about it either. Because a person returns after an illness, the doctors say they are healthy, but the work team discriminates against them because everyone abandons them. People do not understand whether it can still infect or not. An ordinary person does not have such information and it seems that everyone can be infected for another month “, – I. Ruginienė lacked more information.

Sigitas Gailiūnas, President of the Panevėžys Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Handicrafts, lacks information on how to treat recovered persons; According to him, it would be possible to reassure the public clearly.

“The public must be informed without ambiguity. If a person has been infected with a virus, how much can that virus remain dangerous? With such specific information, clearly we are losing it. The government or minister must express an unequivocal position so that no there are doubts, ambiguities or misunderstandings, and people can react calmly to those who have returned to work. This includes not only employees, but also families, relatives and loved ones. Uncertainty generates many fears and there must be clarity to reassure the public and make things easier for both employers and employees and the government itself, ”said S. Gailiūnas.

Employers cannot affect an employee’s incapacity for work

There was even a debate among doctors about whether a patient who had recovered from the coronavirus could be considered recovered after 10 days and released for work.

“Growing situation: Patient with positive COVID-19 PCR. Asymptomatic Isolated with disability for 10 days. There are no symptoms. On the 11th, the employer repeats COVID-19 PCR – positive. There are no symptoms. The employer requires you to take sick leave and not return to work. The patient requires sick leave from the family doctor. Your tactics? ”A specialist from the medical team sought help.

The Ministry of Health has set a period of 10 days for asymptomatic and mild patients with COVID-19. V. Kasiulevičius ensures that this period is sufficient.

The Ministry of Social Security and Labor notes that an employer cannot order an employee to “withdraw a certificate of incapacity for work.”

“A certificate of incapacity for work is issued for a sick COVID-19 person until the person can return to work. The employer does not have the possibility to influence the worker’s incapacity for work, because the certificate of incapacity for work is issued by a family doctor, taking into account the specific situation, ”the ministry explained.

The State Labor Inspectorate (VDI) confirms that receives calls about what to do if an employer refuses to allow a worker to return to work after COVID-19 became ill and disabled.

“If an employee is healthy and the employer can provide him with a job, the employer has no right to deny the job. However, if the employer does not allow the employee to work, the employee is advised to write to the employer with a request stating the reasons why they are not allowed to return to work. If the reasons are unfounded (in the case mentioned, the employee is healthy), the employee can file an application with the SLI and the Labor Disputes Commission. If the employer fears the threat of infection, they may not allow the employee to work, but must pay the full salary that is owed to them, ”VDI says in a comment.

The treatment period is 10 days.

The criteria for a patient to be considered healthy by COVID-19 are described in a special description of the diagnosis and treatment procedure approved by the Minister of Health Aurelijus Veryga.

The deadline for returning to work varies depending on whether the form of the disease is asymptomatic, mild or severe.

In patients with asymptomatic COVID-19 disease, isolation can be suspended 10 days after the collection of a pharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swab that has been detected by PCR (molecular diagnosis) for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

If you have a mild form of COVID-19, you may also need to return to work 10 days later, but not 10 days after taking the smear, but 10 days after symptoms appear, the procedure says. Isolation can be interrupted if the patient has been fever free for at least 3 days without taking antipyretics and other COVID-19 symptoms have resolved.

The following symptoms are considered a mild form of COVID-19: fever, cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, weakness, headache, muscle aches, taste and smell disorders, rarely nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, but not difficulty breathing.

In severe COVID-19 illness, patient isolation may be stopped 20 days after symptom onset if symptoms have subsided and the patient has no fever for at least 3 days without the use of antipyretics.

Only in exceptional cases, at the doctor’s discretion, a shorter isolation than that provided in the description is possible; then two PCR tests per day should be performed, which should be negative.

“The patient is considered to have recovered from the treating physician’s decision, but not before the isolation can be terminated. Once the patient has recovered from COVID-19, the physician records the diagnosis on the ESPBI IS form. E025 ”, according to the latest version of the description.

After recovery from COVID-19, it is not recommended to repeat the SARS-CoV-2 virus PCR test within 3 months of the onset of the first symptoms of COVID-19.

Kasiulevičius confirms: 10 days is enough, and if there are complications, treatment is continued.

Vytautas Kasiulevičius, a professor at the Vilnius University Faculty of Medicine, confirms that 10 days is sufficient.

“It just came to our knowledge then. At the beginning of the pandemic, repeated tests were required to show that the person was not ill. That is, two consecutive tests and one person is not ill. But it turned out that the virus particles remain in the body for a long time, even up to 83 days. So sometimes it happens that a person may not be able to work for several months just because those particles are in his body, but it is not related to the infection, “explained the professor.

According to him, normally the virus harvest no longer grows after 9 days of illness, although particles are still detected.

“Even when seriously ill, patients typically do not become infected 10 days after becoming ill. This is already at least according to statistics and various studies. But it is clear that if there is a more serious illness, the isolation is longer, ”says V. Kasiulevičius.

Explain that doctors assess a person’s well-being when they prescribe disability for work.

“The period of 10 days is when it is asymptomatic. But when it comes to symptoms, a person can cough, get sick, have a fever, there are all kinds of things. We, like flu patients with complications, don’t go to work, so we do in this case. This infection is not something special, ”says V. Kasiulevičius.

Although not necessary, doctors are still investigating

Kęstutis Štaras, director of the Vilnius Center Polyclinic, ensures that even if they are ill, employees are sent for a new examination.

“It is considered that if there were symptoms and isolation, there are no more clinical symptoms, it means that it is clean and you can go to work. It has been shown that COVID-19 can be detected after a month, but it is no longer dangerous for others, it is weakened, inactive, so it does not need to be repeated. If it stays 10-14 days, it will not infect others. But we have such order in the institution that we still reexamine our employees, ”said K. Štaras.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has established the following criteria to release patients from isolation: 10 days after a confirmed positive COVID-19 test for asymptomatic cases, or 10 days after the onset of symptoms if there have been no symptoms for at least the last three days.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommends that for most people with COVID-19, isolation and precautions can be discontinued 10 days after symptoms appear if the person has not developed a fever within 24 hours.

“Available data suggests that people with mild to moderate COVID-19 remain contagious for up to 10 days after symptoms appear. People with a more serious or critical illness, or a serious immune system disorder, can become infected for up to 20 days after symptoms appear. SARS-CoV-2 RNA can continue to be detected in samples from healthy individuals for up to 3 months after disease onset, but at much lower concentrations than during illness, at a rate at which SARS virus has not been obtained. replication and infection is unlikely, ”the CDC said.