Scorecard: Work Refusals for Fear of Getting an Infectious Illness

The OHS laws clearly allow employees to refuse work when they have “reasonable” cause to fear serious injury or illness to themselves and/or others. So, don’t be surprised if one of your employees engages in a work refusal out of fear of catching coronavirus from a co-worker, client or member of the public. While it might seem overly dramatic, such a refusal may be justified, especially if the individual to which the employee is exposed has recently traveled to Wuhan, China, or another high-risk area. Although no coronavirus refusal cases have yet been reported, there have been at least 8 work refusal cases involving other infectious illnesses from previous outbreaks, including SARS, Ebola and Hepatitis B. The Scorecard below summarizes how each of these cases turned out.