'Just wear a mask and don't tell anyone': Workplaces are filling up with sick employees
Maria Bernal, an employee at a Jack in the Box in Folsom, California, couldn't read the orders popping up on her screen. Her vision was blurry, her hands shook from chills and her head felt heavy.
A pharmacist told her she probably had COVID-19. When she told her boss, the manager told Bernal to keep working.
"Don't worry, everyone has it, you can still work. Just wear a mask and don't tell anyone," the manager said, according to a Jan. 14 complaint Bernal filed with Sacramento County's public health department.
As the Omicron variant knocked out swaths of the labor force, people in a variety of jobs — fast-food workers, grocery clerks, teachers — say they have been under immense pressure to report to work while feeling sick or having tested positive with the virus.
Recently changed guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ratcheted up the pressure, workers told The Times, with employers calling back ill employees or trying to keep them on the job while their COVID status is unclear. The CDC shortened its recommendation for isolation for people who are infected with the virus but don't have symptoms, or who are on the mend, to
