Pandemic Daze: First Cold

 What with all the time I spent at home during some portions of the pandemic, and all of the mask-wearing and hand-sanitizing during the other portions, I have only now gotten my first cold since the pandemic started.

Naturally, this has inconveniently coincided with my having started a job a few weeks ago.  I haven't accrued much paid leave anyway, and this particular job does not allow me to take paid leave until after I've spent 90 days on the job, so I'm sitting at home not being paid.  Boo.

When to stay home with an illness is one of those points of pandemic etiquette and procedure that I imagine will be evolving.  In the past, I probably would have gone to work like this and powered through, probably at the cost of getting sicker myself (and possibly at the cost of spreading it to someone else).

But now, people are more likely to view respiratory diseases with some alarm.  My work place does a daily temperature check, so in the event that I ran a fever, I would be sent home anyway.  Also, I'm currently working with  a medically vulnerable population.

However, it's worth noting that temperature checks and social expectations are not fool proof.  Not all infections cause a fever.  Temperature readings can be artificially low if someone has been outside in the cold.  And quite a lot of people are unable to afford unpaid days off from work, and will very likely try to go in no matter how awful they are feeling, and no matter how many dirty looks they might get every time they cough or sneeze.  

It's hard to say what the answer is to this problem.  Mandated paid sick leave is a start, but it's hard to know how much is adequate to keep people at home when that's where they really need to be.  But I'm hoping the pandemic will make people start asking these questions, if not for the sake of the people who feel forced to go to work no matter what, then for the sake of everyone else.  If there is anything we should have learned, it's that the person coughing, sneezing, or whatever else through the workday may be spreading more than a few a crummy days and an inconvenience.