It was in no one's interest for him to close the business: not the owner or the workers, most of them undocumented immigrants ineligible for the $ 1,200 check and other federal aid.
That is why, when the cook of this bakery in Miami, Florida, began to suffer a very high fever and tested positive for COVID-19 in early July, all the workers at the premises nervously commented on it in secret, but they
reached the unspoken agreement of ignore it and they didn't stop going to work.
The owner also buried the issue
, despite the fact that the infected cook had been, as usual, in close contact with the rest of the almost 10 employees of the narrow premises.
"No one formally communicated that there was a positive among the group, nor that we should take the test to rule out that the disease continued to spread. We all acted as if the virus did not exist," says Saúl, a 29-year-old undocumented Cuban who dispatches in the bakery and whose name was changed for privacy.
The fear of losing a job and not being able to get another, he says, was stronger than the fear of the pandemic itself.
Although he didn't know exactly what to do with the results, that same week Saúl made a morning visit to the crowded Miami Beach Community Health Center, where he underwent a free swab exam.
Five days later,
the Center sent him a text message notifying him that he was positive for COVID-19.
Undocumented workers were not included in the first congressional relief package, and conversations for the second indicate that they will not be counted either.
Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
Then she had to make a kind of
decision from Sofía
, with which there was no way to win: continue working to earn an essential check, at the expense of infecting her colleagues and the pastry shop customers, or stop working until she recovered and risk losing your income and your job permanently.
“It was a very big internal conflict. A struggle with myself ”
, recalls the young man, who only told a co-worker of his diagnosis,“ I was facing a practical decision or a moral decision.
I thought about it a lot, but I said to myself: 'I have to keep working.
In those days Florida - and specifically the southern county of Miami-Dade - had displaced New York to become the hottest point in the health crisis due to the coronavirus in the United States, and daily cases were counted in the five figures.
A plethora of businesses, small and large, had either failed or were on the brink.
Almost 20 million Americans were applying for unemployment benefits, a number that would later increase by more than 50%.
That financial relief, however, did not apply to Saul or many of his co-workers at the bakery.
The financial aid package approved by Congress in March excluded the undocumented like him, even those who pay taxes.
Their spouses weren't eligible for the $ 1,200 check either, except for a few states like California or New York where they received some income support and little else.
The pastry chef herself, Saúl says,
made a superhuman effort to continue going to work even with severe symptoms, because she needed the money.
[Citizens donate their coronavirus aid check to undocumented immigrants]
It is not clear if, in addition to the two of them, other workers or customers were infected by interactions in the small premises, where employees - wearing masks and gloves - come and go down the narrow corridor behind the counter, for eight hours or more. in which they coincide almost daily.
The most vulnerable employees
Some small business owners in the service sector, such as the bakery where the Cuban works,
have pressured undocumented workers to continue generating income for the business
, even when they pose a risk of spreading the pandemic.
Saúl's boss, for example, learned of the potential outbreak in the cafeteria and, far from recommending diagnostic tests or urging workers to self-isolate at home,
he asked them for “loyalty”
during the slump so that the bakery would not close .
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At the beginning of March, when the pandemic began and the use of masks in closed public places was not yet mandatory —but it was recommended— Saúl had attended work with a mask.
"My colleagues made fun of me and the owner told me to take it off, because it could scare off customers," he explains.
That's why in July, amid the drop in sales after the quarantine and the collapse of tourism, the young man says, he and his colleagues avoided expressing any concern about the virus.
Between fear of retaliation, gratitude for getting a job without papers, and needing a check, Saúl and the others stayed.
[COVID-19 hits Texas and Hispanics die the most]
That the owner found out that at least the cook had tested positive for COVID-19 was a coincidence.
A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Labor told Noticias Telemundo that
there is no system or protocol for employers to ensure that all their employees are free of the virus.
COVID-19 diagnostic centers do not report results to workplaces, so it is up to each employee to inform their supervisors if they tested positive.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) only “recommends” that workers report positive, so their supervisors can take “steps, such as cleaning and sanitizing, to protect others. employees".
Furthermore, employers are not required to tell their workers which of their co-workers is infected, due to the confidentiality required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Employers do have an obligation to ensure "a workplace free of known health and safety hazards," the spokesman said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Guide for Businesses and Employers recommends that employers determine which employees may have been exposed to the virus and inform other staff about a possible exposure, without mentioning names.
In the case of the bakery where Saúl works,
this would have required that all the employees be quarantined
, since they had all been in contact with the cook and him.
Legal consequences
With this background scenario, and taking into account the reluctance of some entrepreneurs to close their businesses due to lack of employees, it is possible that the pandemic has been spreading silently in some work centers, especially in the service sector, where direct physical interaction with customers is a constant.
But both negligent employers and
workers who choose not to report testing positive, putting others at risk, face legal consequences
that can include jail time, probation or fines, says attorney Adam Rossen of the Rossen firm. Florida-based Law Firm.
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July 22, 202000: 28
Federal authorities are treating COVID-19 in a similar way to other infections such as HIV or sexually transmitted diseases:
its deliberate transmission is considered a “serious crime”, and can be punished with a maximum of 5 years in prison, freedom conditional or a combination of both.
“People who purposely infect others are committing a crime and can be prosecuted.
The Department of Justice (DOJ, in English) assured that they can even be accused of domestic terrorism, "explains Rossen," it all depends on the specificities of each case and how creative the prosecutors want to get. "
Indeed, in late March, Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said in a memorandum that the coronavirus appeared to "meet
the legal definition of a biological agent."
[FBI warns that white supremacists threaten to infect police and Jews with coronavirus]
In the United States, several people have been accused of spreading a pandemic.
Among them, a young man from Missouri who posted a video in which he licked various deodorants at a Walmart while challengingly asking, "Who's afraid of the coronavirus?"
Another New Jersey man who coughed in the face of an employee at the Wegmans Market and later told her he was infected also had to face justice.
But not only those who deliberately infect others can be accused of spreading the virus.
Rossen says infected people like Saul, whose conduct could be construed as "negligent or disregarding human life or the safety of others" can face charges of culpable negligence, which is considered a misdemeanor.
If the customer of a certain establishment such as the bakery where the Cuban works in Miami can prove that he was infected on the premises, he also has the power to sue the business for personal injury.
Employees who become infected in their workplace can also take this same action.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in the United States, insurance companies and lawyers have witnessed a hotbed of litigation of this nature.
What is expected, Rossen says, is that lawsuits continue to increase.
For this reason, the legal community has expressed concern that, in
addition to the health and economic crisis rigged to the coronavirus, the country will have to deal with the added drama of claims for
liability
(
liability).
This is one of the many points of disagreement that have stalled talks between Republicans and Democrats in Congress for the approval of a second economic relief package.
Through their Civil Liability Protection proposal, Republicans want to shield companies from any legal action by employees or customers who were infected on the spot, while Democrats oppose this legal shield.
Contradictory results generate mistrust
A day before receiving the text in which they told him that his COVID-19 test was positive, Saúl heard a confusing voice message from an official at the Miami Beach Community Health Center in which they assured him that his sample was “ non-reactive ”, which is to say that it was not enough to give a definitive result.
"When the next day they told me based on the same test that I was infected, I did not take it seriously," he says, "I thought that the shortness of breath, the mild agitation and the headache were the result of the psyche or fatigue. that one has all the time ”.
In addition to the need for the check and the fear of losing his job, the lack of confidence in the test encouraged him not to stop working despite the diagnosis.
Since the beginning of massive tests in the country - crucial for detecting the disease and tracing contacts - false negatives and false positives have not been uncommon, which has generated skepticism among the population, as well as false feelings of security or insecurity.
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In mid-July, Florida even registered cases of people who received positive results for coronavirus tests that were never subjected to.
These people went to the test centers, registered with their personal information, but ended up leaving without giving a sample due to the long lines.
The scandal further undermined confidence in the exams.
“Testing positive when no sample was sent (to a lab) is problematic.
So I've heard it enough to worry, "acknowledged Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis during a news conference that month.
Johann Torres, medical director of the Community Health Center where Saúl underwent the molecular test, tells Noticias Telemundo that
they cannot offer information on what percentage of the 100 tests that are carried out daily there have yielded erroneous results.
The molecular test - also known as swabbing or PCR - is "the most reliable" of the two they offer, according to Torres.
The fast one, called Abbot, is capable of giving results in 15 minutes.
It has been used among White House officials after its emergency approval in March, but studies have shown that its potential for failure is up to 48%.
“We know that rapid tests are great for detecting positives, but not so great for negatives.
That is why, as far as possible, we do the second test (of the swab), which can be positive days later ”, he explains.
“We tell all fast-paced patients that they can trust the results if they are positive.
If they are negative, they must wait for the results of the other to return ”.
DeSantis - who has been questioned for being one of the last governors to impose restrictions early in the outbreak - also criticized the dangerous delay of test results.
[Why COVID-19 test results are so delayed. And how do you decide who knows them before]
More than six months after the start of the outbreak in the United States, it is not uncommon for results to take up to 10 days to return, which is about five times slower than at the beginning of the pandemic, when the laboratories responsible for processing the samples they were not yet suffering from bottlenecks.
For example, the reference laboratory Quest Diagnostics, which
has performed about one in five COVID-19 tests in the United States, has an average wait time of a week or more.
Some people have had to wait up to two weeks for their results, she said in a statement to the Vox news site.
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Taking into consideration how highly contagious the new coronavirus is - the CDC assures that it spreads even more efficiently than other viruses such as influenza - the delays have made it more difficult to control the increase in cases, since in the absence of an early confirmation that in Effect were infected, people often continue with their normal lives.
“Something told me that I didn't have it.
For me, the test they did to me that first time was not serious, ”says Saúl, whose ethical escape from continuing to go to work despite the positive diagnosis was to extreme sanitary measures such as washing hands and repeating the exam a few days later, in a different clinic.
He underwent the second test on a Friday, when he had already worked a week infected, according to the official diagnosis.
The results came in on Tuesday and this time they were negative.
“To those who judge me for having continued working with a positive result, I would say that it is very difficult to put yourself in someone else's shoes.
The undocumented population feels very vulnerable, because we do not have aid.
The undocumented do not exist: Trump wants to not even count us in the Census, "he explains.
“I would tell him to think about how I find the money to pay my rent.
It is not about money to save or have a comfortable life, but only to preserve the roof, "he adds.
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Note: It is illegal for employers to retaliate against employees
for exercising their health and safety rights.
All employees, regardless of immigration status, have the right to file a confidential health and safety complaint or report if they feel they are working in unsafe conditions.
These complaints can be made online with OSHA or by phone, 24 hours a day, at
1-800-321-OSHA (6742).