I don’t generally get worried about new infectious diseases, and COVID-19 is no exception. Being one of the fortunate few who is both healthy and resident in a wealthy country with an advanced and accessible medical system, I can afford not to panic.

New viruses, I reason, are like being hit by a truck or punched in the face: they will happen in this wide chaotic world of ours from time to time, and beyond a few basic precautions there is little I personally can do to stop them.

Of course I do the little that is within my power — for my own good and that of the community in which I live. I cover my mouth when I cough and I regularly wash and sanitize my hands.

What I don’t — and won’t — do is stay home from work when I’m sick. This isn’t because I’m ignorant or uncaring about others; it’s because, like a great many people in this country, I just can’t afford it.

People in more privileged economic positions — including, I’m assuming, those responsible for telling the rest of us to stay home from work when we’re sick — don’t seem to truly understand what this means, so allow me to explain.

Have your say:

If I don’t go to work, even for one hour, I don’t get paid. At one of my jobs (like many people in this economy, I have several) my weekly pay is contingent on me showing up to deliver a class in-person. This means that if I cancel class one week because I am sick, I get no pay for that week — even if I spend the rest of the same week grading papers and responding to student emails from home.

Every missed hour is missed income that I am counting on to make basic ends meet. With contract work that ends at the end of each academic year, I have no guarantee that any lost income can be made up in the future. Showing up to work every day when I am scheduled to work is the only way I can pay rent and make my monthly student loan payments.

And here’s the kicker: I have good jobs. My contracts pay me a good hourly wage and have at least some unionization under which I am protected from real exploitation. That’s not the case for a huge number of workers — particularly people who work in service. A living wage at their multiple jobs is not something that exists for much of the working population — let alone job security, savings, and income buffers.

So when public health officials and corporate bosses at large institutions send out advice that lists “staying home when you’re sick” as one of the things individuals can do to stop the spread of infectious diseases, it seems like, at best, a bad joke.

At worst, it undermines the validity of their otherwise good advice. Because if authorities continue to provide public health messaging that is so out of touch with the reality of many people’s lives, people will quickly learn to do what they usually do with empty words: ignore them.

While an argument could certainly be made for not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, that — for better or for worse — is not how the credibility of messaging works. One recommendation that betrays a fundamental ignorance of practical realities ignites suspicion that other recommendations from the same source are based on similar ignorance.

Given that the rest of the COVID-19 precautionary advice directed to individuals by our public institutions is solidly grounded in both medical knowledge and lived reality, that’s a suspicion we don’t want to ignite.

A simple shift in language could go a long way here. Instead of continuing to iterate that, frankly ludicrous, directive that individuals just “stay home” when they’re sick, our public health authorities should shift to advice that suggests “paying your employees to stay at home if they’re sick.” That puts the focus and the onus on the only place where it could actually make a difference.

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