There will be no more waiting days from this week for any work stoppage related to the coronavirus.

When you work in the private sector, there is a three-day waiting period, which means that social security does not pay you anything for the first three days you are off. For officials it’s a day.

End of waiting days

Now, in case of symptoms or suspicion of Covid, there will be no longer this waiting day and you will be paid from the first day of your stop.

With this change, the government is really trying to get people to stay home at the slightest symptom. Many people cannot afford to lose several days of wages. They prefer not to go see the doctor and continue to go to work, with the risk of infecting their team.

Consult in case of symptoms

From this week, there will no longer be any need to go to the doctor to be stopped in case of symptoms.

This is the other major change. Until now if you had symptoms of Covid-19, you had to go to the doctor or at least do a teleconsultation, to have a sick leave. Among the people authorized to issue you this stop, there was your attending physician, health insurance or the occupational physician.

Since Monday, the novelty is that in case of symptoms, it will suffice to go directly to declare.ameli.fr to report symptoms and get time off work if it is not possible to telecommute or if the person is too weak to work from home.

The person then obtains proof to download and send to the employer.

A Social Security check

Once you have declared yourself, you agree to have a PCR test or an antigen test within 2 days. Then as soon as you have the result, you return to the site to enter the test result and the location of the screening.

There are in this case two options:

• If the result is negative, the Health Insurance then puts an end to the work stoppage which was requested on the Ameli site. You will still be paid for your days of absence.
• The result is positive, you will then be called within the framework of the contact tracing managed by the Health Insurance. The counselor will prescribe an extended work stoppage to ensure seven days of isolation since the first symptoms.

Other health insurance checks

The Health Insurance also plans to ensure regular checks to prevent abuse. Normally, you will be called by Health Insurance “2 to 3” times during the seven days that your isolation will last.

A home visit by a nurse will be offered from January 20 for those who have self-declared positive for Covid-19. Social security is so in demand at the moment that it seems quite difficult to implement in practice.

And the doctors in all of this …

This is the whole problem, for the government, because the purpose of this device is to avoid the congestion of doctors’ offices which would be in great demand since the holidays.

The MG France union and its president, Dr Jacques Battistoni, explains all the bad things he thinks about this change. He considers the withdrawal day a good thing, however, he is totally against not having to see his doctor.

It is necessary that the patient, feeling symptoms, consult, whether for Covid or other related pathologies. It is essential for him to see with him how to manage his isolation and his treatment.

Doctors’ offices are far from overwhelmed since at the moment there are very few consultations for acute illnesses such as flu or gastro.

Provide the result of his test to his employer

To find out more about the obligations of employees, an expert in this field, Maître Eric Rochevable, lawyer specializing in labor law and social security, explains that you are absolutely not obliged to communicate the results of the PCR test, nor the reason for your stoppage of work. This information is a matter of medical confidentiality and the private life of the employee.

On the other hand, an employee cannot hide from his employer that he is contagious, so if you think you have put your colleagues at risk, the best solution is to tell your company doctor. He will be able to do what is necessary within the company while respecting medical confidentiality.