Calls for workplace emergency regulations on coronavirus

Labour law experts are calling for emergency regulations or amendments to be put in place in the event of employees possibly becoming infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19).

There are three confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa.

It is a couple from KwaZulu-Natal and a Gauteng woman. The couple’s children have tested negative but will remain in self-quarantine.

No deaths have been reported so far.

The number of infections worldwide has increased to more than 107 000 with about 3 600 deaths.

The majority of cases and deaths have been in China, but cases are continuing to emerge across the globe.

The virus causes severe acute respiratory infection and symptoms that usually start with a fever.

Early symptoms of #COVID19 #Coronavirus pic.twitter.com/502qH6VSx7

— Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) March 8, 2020

An Attorney at Maserumule Attorneys Puke Maserumule says: “We don’t have provisions for that in law. Our law recognises sick leave and that is when you have been diagnosed that you are sick and the doctor says you can’t go to work.”

“What we are faced with is unprecedented, the law doesn’t really cater for it because if I have been in contact with someone who has been diagnosed and I haven’t been diagnosed as yet – either my employer might request me not to come to work or I might self-isolate.”

“The question would be do you take leave and what kind of leave did you take? We are going to have to get some kind of emergency regulations of amendments to labour legislation to address the issue.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize says their efforts to locate all the people who have been in contact with the country’s three confirmed cases of the deadly coronavirus have started to yield positive results.

They were all part of a group of 10 that had traveled to Italy and returned to South Africa on March 01.

“We have ascertained who the people are that would have got into contact with the first patient since he got from Dubai, up to the time he went to the doctor. We’ve got the whole list – those who were in the plane, we’ve actually picked up information from the aircraft. We are tracing them all and those who were met outside the plane from the airport to the house, we’ve got that whole list, so we tracing all of them together,” says Mkhize.