Company Ebola Policies [closed]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

Has anyone's company issued a policy regarding Ebola yet? Specifically, I am interested to learn what type of travel restrictions might be applied, and if there could be any potential blood testing or quarantining for employees returning from hot-zones.

manpreet 2 years ago

Most companies

No, while the Ebola epidemic is a noteworthy tragedy on a grand scale it's tiny to a point of near insignificance. (unless you live or work in the afflicted places)

Some companies

EDIT: In was noted some companies do infact have these policies in place in the US as the US has not put in place a ban on travel to the affected areas. Based on what I've found such policies are pretty straight forward. "Employees of [Redacted] are not permitted to travel to or through [List of places] for personal or business reasons." ... "Failure to comply will result in immediate termination and litigation where necessary"

AKA if you so much have a layover in an affected region, we'll fire you and turn you over to the police if travel restrictions are in affect.

Exceptions

Many countries such as the UK have already put in place limitations for people traveling from countries currently afflicted by ebola. Since your company policy cannot conflict with law if your company is affected then they already have the government enforcing what they effectively wouldn't be able to enforce anyways.

Other countries are permitting travel with a 3 week quarantine or blood screening post travel (basically you are held somewhere where if you were infected you'd show symptoms or they do blood work to check for the virus, failing lands you in quarantine until you either no longer contagious or you die.)

How bad is this really?

Well Ebola is no joke, it's a wretchedly terrible way to die and kills between 25 and 90% of the people it infects. On the other hand it's only been confirmed to transfer through biological fluids and cannot survive outside the body for very long.

If Ebola got out into the world at large it would be a tragedy, but is expected even worst case to kill less people than influenza annually. Partly because Ebola is terrifying and kills most people (taken seriously), while the flu is considered "really annoying" to most people and people don't take it as seriously going out and about to work, school, etc when they know they are sick.

Edit: updated fatality rate per better resource than I originally quoted.