The Finance Ministry is pushing for the extension of the payment arrangement for quarantine days, as the existing order is expected to expire at the end of December. Extending the arrangement also requires the approval of the Labor and Welfare Committee. The cost of the order is estimated at 200 million shekels ($64.2 million) and will be financed from the budgetary framework designed to deal with the consequences of the spread of coronavirus.
The current law stipulates that the allotted sum for quarantine days is paid to the employee directly by the employer, while the employers are compensated by the state at a rate of 50% (employers of up to 20 employees are compensated at a rate of 75%).
As of August, it has been stipulated that unvaccinated workers will be entitled to only 75% of the value of their sick days for the days of quarantine, compared to vaccinated workers who are entitled to full pay if they are required to isolate. It was also stipulated that parents of children in quarantine who were required to miss work to care for their child, would also be entitled to payments.
The explanatory memorandum to the bill emphasized that there is still morbidity, and various provisions still exist requiring those who are not vaccinated and exposed to a verified patient with COVID-19 to stay in isolation. In addition, vaccinated people that have been exposed to verified patients infected with the Omicron strain must enter quarantine for one day.
The memorandum continued that the payment to workers required for quarantine is necessary in order to prevent the creation of incentives for workers to violate quarantine in order to avoid harm to their wages. However, currently self-employed people are not entitled to quarantine payments at all.
About a month ago, Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that he intends to promote a solution to the payment of quarantine days for the self-employed – but for now, this issue has not been settled and does not even appear in the draft recently presented. Last August, during a hearing on a petition filed by the Lahav Independent Organization in the High Court, the judges clarified that “the state must look into an arrangement tailored to the public of self-employed workers.”
