California passed Senate Bill 95 on March 18, 2021, which provides covid supplemental paid sick leave to employees for up to 80 hours. This shall remain effective until September 30, 2021. This applies retroactively to January 1, 2021. The leave will apply to employers with more than 25 employees.

This leave also applies to employees going for appointments to receive a COVID-19 vaccine or experiencing symptoms after vaccination.

New York passed new guidance concerning covid on January 20, 2021, under which employers are required to provide paid sick leave for covid related reasons. The previous guidance passed on March 20, 2020, provided for at least 14 days of paid leave for employers with 100 or more employees. The new guidance released allows employees to take up to 2 additional periods of paid sick leave under the law. This law applies to all employees regardless of the size of the employer. No expiration date was provided.

On May 27, 2020, the Mayor signed D.C. COVID-19 Support Emergency Amendment Act (CSEA) and provided that during a declared state of a public health emergency, any employee who has worked for 30 days for an employer( of any size) may use up to 16 weeks of “COVID-19” Leave. The right to COVID-19 Leave terminates when the public health emergency ends, even if an employee has not exhausted the 16-week entitlement.

Guidance was issued by the Connecticut labor department concerning the COVID-19 response. The Guidance allows employees under Connecticut’s Paid Sick Leave Law (“PSL”) to receive payment for certain absences caused by COVID-19. The PSL applies to employers with 50 or more employees in Connecticut. Eligible employees under PSL accrue 1 hour of sick leave for every 40 hours worked during a 365-day period chosen by employers, up to a maximum of 40 hours of sick leave per year.

Michigan’s governor had that allows employees to provide that employees can take sick leave for covid-19 related reasons under Michigan Paid Medical Leave Act. As per the Act, employees accrue up to 1 hour of sick leave for every 35 hours worked. The Act further requires that an employer shall allow an eligible employee to use up to 40 hours of sick leave per 12-month period of eligibility. This applies to employers who employ 50 or more employees. The Act provides for 12 exclusions – to which the Act is not applicable including employees who worked, on average, fewer than 25 hours per week during the preceding calendar year.

Colorado had passed the Healthy Families and Workplaces Act in 2020 which provides for sick leave and emergency sick leave provisions in case of a pandemic. The supplementary emergency leave provisions however expired in 2020, which was further extended in December of 2020 and which states that effective January 1, 2021 – an employer regardless of the size shall provide sick leave in the below manner:

• For employees who normally work 40 hours or more per week: At least 80 hours.
• For employees who normally work fewer than 40 hours in a week: At least the greater of either (i) the number of hours the employee is scheduled for work or PSL (Paid sick leave) in the 14-day period after the request for PHE-PSL (Supplemental Public Health Emergency Paid Sick Leave), or (ii) the amount of time the employee actually worked in the 14-day period before the declaration of the public health emergency or the request for PHE-PSL, whichever is later.

This sick leave may be used until 4 weeks after the official termination or suspension of the public health emergency.

On April 1, 2021, an Act Financing a Program for Improvements to the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund and Providing Relief to Employers and Workers in the Commonwealth was signed into law. Under this law The amount of COVID-19 emergency paid sick leave available to an employee regardless of the size of the employer depends on his/her work schedule:

• An employee who works 40 hours or more per week shall be eligible for up to 40 hours of leave.
• An employee who works less than 40 hours a week, but maintains a regular schedule with consistent hours per week, shall be eligible for leave that is equal to the number of hours that such employee works per week, on average over a 14-day period of such regular schedule.
• An employee whose schedule and weekly hours worked vary from week to week is eligible for leave equal to either (a) the average number of hours that the employee was scheduled to work per week over the 6-month period immediately preceding the date of leave, or (b) if the employee has not worked for six months, the reasonable expectation of the employee at the time of hire of the average number of hours per week that the employee would normally be scheduled to work. As Passed by the Legislature, COVID-19 emergency paid sick leave would be available to employees until: (i) monies in the COVID-19 Emergency Paid Sick Leave Fund are no longer available; (ii) the Executive Office for Administration and Finance notifies employers that it reasonably anticipates funds will no longer be available for reimbursement; or (iii) September 30, 2021, whichever is first.

Nevada passed Bill SB 312 was signed into law and is effective from January 1, 2020. Originally it was to be allowed only for specific illness-related reasons but was gradually allowed to employees, to be used up for any reason including covid 19. Private employers with 50 or more employees in Nevada must now provide each employee with at least 0.01923 hours of paid leave for each hour of work performed in a benefit year, which the bill defines simply as a 365-day period. The bill does not distinguish between full-and part-time employees in this regard. Under the statutory formula, an employee who works 40 hours a week for a full year is entitled to approximately 40 hours of paid leave, which the employee may take without providing a reason for the leave to his or her employer.

As per the Guidance provided by the Rhode Island Department of Labour, the employers are not required to compensate their employees beyond available paid leave under the statutory state sick leave law, i.e a maximum of 40 hours of paid leave per year for covid related reasons. However, employees may be allowed temporary disability insurance for short-term disability benefits for non-occupational disabilities or unemployment insurance benefits from the state because of reduced working hours or if they have been laid off from work.

New Jersey passed Earned Sick Leave Act which amends New Jersey’s Earned Sick Leave (the Act) to allow employees to use the accrued paid sick leave. Employers must provide employees with earned sick leave at the rate of 1 hour for every 30 hours worked up to a maximum of 40 hours in a year for covid related reasons. This applies to employers of all sizes.

In Oregon, employers who have 10 or more employees shall provide employees at least 1 hour of protected sick time for every 30 hours of work up to 40 hours per year. The Oregon government passed theCOVID-19 Temporary Paid Leave Program which helps employees who need to quarantine or isolate because of COVID-19 exposure or are experiencing symptoms and seeking a medical diagnosis, but do not qualify for COVID-19-related paid sick leave or do not have access to COVID-19-related paid time off. People who qualify will receive a $120 per-day payment for up to 10 working days