Earlier in September, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (better known to lazy people as the “EEOC”) issued new Q&As to supplement the Q&As it has been issuing from time to time since March.
As for some takeaways from the new Q&As, employers:
(1) May administer tests for the presence of the COVID-19 virus (but not antibody tests!) to employees when evaluating their initial or continued presence in the workplace.
(2) May ask ALL employees physically entering the workplace if they have been diagnosed with or tested for COVID-19, but may ask those questions of a single employee, or require just one employee to have his or her temperature taken, ONLY IF the employer has a reasonable belief, based on objective evidence, that this employee might have the disease.
(3) May NOT ask employee physically coming into the workplace if he or she has relatives who have COVID-19 or its symptoms.
(4) May ask an employee why he or she has been absent from work.
(5) Need not grant telework to all employees with disabilities as a reasonable accommodation once the workplace reopens just because it granted or required telework during the pandemic, but the telework experience during the pandemic could be relevant to whether an employer should grant telework as an accommodation to a particular employee in the future.
And more! And the EEOC will surely issue more Q&As in the future as the pandemic continues.
(Oh, and remember, this is informational, not legal advice!)