Newsom Aims To Renew COVID Sick Pay For Californians

CALIFORNIA — Gov. Gavin Newsom previewed a $2.7 billion coronavirus response package over the weekend, which calls for new legislation to reinstate COVID-19 paid sick leave policies.

California's previous supplemental paid sick leave law — which required employers with 26 employees or more to provide 80 hours of paid COVID-19 sick time — expired on Sept. 30 of last year.

Under that law, employees received sick time if they missed work to quarantine or isolate or if they had appointments to get a vaccination. The law also allowed time off for those experiencing symptoms from the COVID-19 vaccines.

Millions of workers in California whose jobs don’t provide paid sick days are having to choose between their health and their paycheck as the omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to drive cases up to record breaking rates in California.

Many employers created strong sick leave policies at the beginning of the pandemic, but much of those have since been scaled back following the rollout of the vaccines. But the omicron variant has managed to drive up breakthrough cases in the vaccinated, creating a crisis for California's workforce.

"No worker should be forced to choose between earning a paycheck or going to work sick," the California Labor Federation tweeted on Monday. "That's why [Newsom] is right to call for COVID #PaidSickDaysNow."

The funding would also be allocated to rev up testing capacity, accelerate vaccination and booster efforts, support frontline workers, strengthen the health care system and battle misinformation, Newsom's office said on Saturday.

"From day one, California has taken swift and direct action to battle COVID-19 with policies that have saved tens of thousands of lives, but there’s more work to be done,” Newsom wrote in a statement.

The proposal would allocates $1.2 billion to bolster testing capacity by expanding hours at state testing sites, distributing COVID-19 antigen tests to local health departments and supporting the state's testing facilities. $583 million would go toward getting more Californians tested for COVID-19, among other things, while $614 million would be used to support healthcare workers and health care systems.

Meanwhile, health authorities around the U.S. are increasingly taking the extraordinary step of allowing nurses and other workers infected with the coronavirus to stay on the job if they have mild symptoms or none at all.

These decisions are dire response to severe hospital staffing shortages as the omicron variant rips through the state.

California health authorities announced over the weekend that hospital staff members who test positive but are symptom-free can continue working, despite a parallel announcement to bring back paid COVID-19 sick leave.

The state's Department of Public Health said the new policy was prompted by "critical staffing shortages." It asked hospitals to make every attempt to fill openings by bringing in employees from outside staffing agencies.

Also, infected workers will be required to wear extra-protective N95 masks and should be assigned to treat other COVID-19-positive patients, the department said.

"We did not ask for this guidance, and we don’t have any information on whether hospitals will adopt this approach or not," said Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association. "But what we do know is that hospitals are expecting many more patients in the coming days than they’re going to be able to care for with the current resources."

Emerson-Shea said many hospital workers have been exposed to the virus, and are either sick or caring for family members who are.

The 100,000-member California Nurses Association came out against the decision and warned it will lead to more infections.

Newsom and other state health leaders "are putting the needs of health care corporations before the safety of patients and workers," Cathy Kennedy, the association’s president, said in a statement. "We want to care for our patients and see them get better — not potentially infect them."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.