Member Article

On 13 March 2020, an executive regulation of the Minister of Health on the declaration of an epidemiological threat in the Republic of Poland entered into force. It indicates that in the period from 14 March 2020 until further notice astate of an epidemiological threat is declared in the Republic of Poland due to infections from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The result is, inter alia, suspension of international air and rail connections and aban on foreigners entering the Republic of Poland. In turn, each person crossing the state border to return to its place of residence or stay in the Republic of Poland must submit to amandatory 14-day quarantine. Its basis differs from general rules in this respect.

Quarantine

According to Act of 5 December 2008 on prevention and control of infections and infectious diseases in people, the State Sanitary Inspector or the State Border Sanitary Inspector may issue adecision to quarantine aperson in the Republic of Poland if such person is:

• infected,
• ill with an infectious disease or
• suspected of being infected or ill with an infectious disease or
• had contact with the source of the biological pathogen.

Importantly, ahealth inspector decision is the basis for payment of sickness benefits on general terms. This is because the time when an insured person is in quarantine is treated as aperiod of incapacity to work, even if the person is not sick. For this time, benefits are due on the same basis as if the quarantined person was ill. For workers, this is according to general rules:

• the employer pays them sick pay for the first 33 days (14 days for employees above the age of 50) of inability to work in agiven calendar year,
• after that time the employee is entitled to asickness benefit financed by ZUS.

Thus, during absence from work due to quarantine, there is entitlement to sick pay or asickness benefit. As ZUS states on its website, adecision to undergo aquarantine can be delivered to the employer or to aZUS facility even after the quarantine period.

Furthermore, if atreating physician determines that adeclaration of temporary incapacity to work due to illness is justified during hospitalisation, isolation or quarantine on account of the state of health of the person subject to these obligations and confirms this by issuing amedical certificate, it is also adocument for establishing the right and payment of sickness benefits. Assessment of whether astate of health justifies the issue of amedical certificate shall remain at the discretion of the physician.

Quarantine when crossing the border

However, the issued regulation modifies rules on quarantine for persons coming to Poland. According to it, during the period of an epidemiological threat, aperson crossing the state border in order to return to aplace of residence or stay in the Republic of Poland is required to:

• provide aBorder Guard officer:
  • its address of residence or stay where the mandatory quarantine will take place,
  • its telephone contact number;
• undergo, upon crossing the state border, amandatory quarantine of 14 days counting from the date following the date of crossing the border.

The Border Guard shall make information available to authorities of the State Sanitary Inspectorate about the address of residence or stay and contact telephone number, together with other data of such person obtained in the course of an inspection.

Significantly, no separate decision of the health inspection authority seems to be issued in relation to the 14-day quarantine obligation. This is important in order to correctly account for remuneration of aquarantined employee. In the standard quarantine procedure the health inspector issues arelevant decision. The question therefore arises as to how an employee should document acompulsory quarantine to an employer.

Employees should above all remember that, in accordance with aregulation of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy of 15 May 1996 on the manner of justifying absence from work and granting employees dismissal from work, the employee must warn the employer about the cause and expected period of absence from work if the cause of this absence is known in advance or is foreseeable.

In this particular case, however, the employee will not provide the employer aquarantine decision, as it is not issued at all. It seems that the basis for payment of sick pay should be appropriate information of the employee on crossing the border, together with awritten statement of the quarantine order in accordance with the Regulation on declaring an epidemic emergency. Certainly, this issue should be confirmed by ZUS, so that employers have no doubts about current settlements of remuneration with employees.

Voluntary quarantine

It should be remembered that if an employee voluntarily abstains from work and chooses to be kept in quarantine at home as apreventive measure, such employee will not receive amedical certificate or decision from the health inspector on this basis. It will therefore not be entitled to cash benefits in case of illness. However, if an employee works during this time (e.g. as part of awork from home order), the right to remuneration for work will be retained.

Article first published on hrlaw.pl