Flu, RSV, COVID pose triple threat to in-person work attendance

Just as businesses continue to bring more employees back to the office, they’re now faced with a tripledemic to navigate.

We're not even into the depths of winter and it’s already turning into a rough season with an overlap of RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), flu and COVID, which means employers should prepare for more absences, experts are warning.

“Usually one of each of these viruses is predominant at any one time,” says Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of public health and epidemiology at Northwell Health.

This season, “there’s definitely more overlap and it definitely has posed challenges to employers already and I think it will continue to do so for at least the next two to three months,” he says.

The RSV surge that dominated the last couple of months, which Farber said is likely the worst in over a decade, is starting to die down, but now flu is coming at full force with COVID still ever-present.

The good news in regards to COVID is the new variants are not more “virulent” than previous strains and there’s a “decent level of baseline immunity” in the community, which helps to prevent what could have been “a huge surge like we saw last January,” Farber says.

The bad news is it appears the region’s in for a “very significant and perhaps very bad influenza season,” he says, noting vaccination rates aren’t as high as they’ve been in the past with much less than half the population in New York having been vaccinated for flu this year.

With that said, there are likely to be more cases of illness in the workplace at a time when many COVID protocols like masking have been dropped at most businesses. Masking can help reduce the spread of a variety of respiratory viruses.

Further adding to the challenge for employers is “it’s very difficult and often impossible to distinguish one virus from another based on symptoms alone,” says Farber.

Employers shouldn’t try guessing and rather encourage any sick employees to stay home, he says.

In addition, to the extent employers could encourage employees to get the flu vaccine, that could be helpful, says Ruth Kraft, a Garden City-based employment lawyer representing management.

They might even consider offering a flu shot clinic free on-site or a bit of paid time off to get vaccinated for the flu, she says.

She doesn’t recommend employers mandating vaccines, but rather encouraging it.

It could be a contentious subject given many people "got turned off to vaccination in general because of the politicization of the COVID vaccine,” Kraft says.

Adrienne Giannone, president and CEO of Edge Electronics, a Bohemia-based distributor of electronic components and display solutions, says she doesn’t mandate any vaccine, but recently sent an email to employees, saying “it’s more than just flu season this year with what’s looking like a tripledemic.” She urged employees to get vaccinated if they could to “lessen the threat of severity of illness.”

In the past month, she’s seen more employees calling out sick with some sort of virus than a year ago.

“It's very challenging not only to the company itself, but to the employees because they have to pick up the slack for people that may be out sick,” Giannone says.

Regardless, if an employee’s sick, the company tells them to stay home and take a COVID test. And if they’re able to, they work from home, she says.

Kraft said given what could be a tough winter illness season, “this is the time to the extent possible, employers should continue to be flexible with regard to hybrid arrangements” to ride the season out.

And while employers may be concerned whether an employee’s calling out with a legitimate sickness, she reminds employers that an employee who says they're sick is entitled to that time off and the employer is prohibited by law from retaliating against them.

If employees can work from home, employers should be flexible, but assess it on a case-by-case basis rather than just making a blanket statement saying if you don’t feel good, you can work from home, says Maureen Bradley, director of HR consulting at Portnoy, Messinger, Pearl & Associates in Jericho. That could leave the door open to abuse by employees who don't really need to stay home.

As preventive measures, employers may consider bringing back some of the COVID safeguards like hand sanitizer stations or perhaps limit the size of meetings, Bradley says.

Edge Electronics has a sanitizing station in the lobby and also provides desk sanitizers to employees.

Also let employees take precautions they need to feel safe, Bradley says. “Don’t judge someone if they want to wear a mask.” 

By Jamie Herzlich

jherzlich@aol.com

Herzlich writes the Small Business column in Newsday.