Coronavirus and the ADA: 6 key answers.

In your efforts to keep employees healthy during the coronavirus outbreak, you may soon face several tricky issues that could bump up against federal disability law.

The ADA protects workers in some important ways in this environment:

* First, it limits your ability to ask employees about their health or demand a medical exam.

* Second, it prohibits you from keeping disabled workers away from the workplace unless they pose a "direct threat" to others or themselves.

* Third, it requires you to offer reasonable accommodations for staff deemed to be disabled.

With those principles in mind, the EEOC issued guidance recently on how employers should apply the ADA to this coronavirus environment:

1. At-risk staff Can we ask employees if they have any chronic health conditions that could make them more susceptible to coronavirus?

   Typically, no. Asking an employee to disclose a chronic condition or compromised immune system would be considered an unlawful "disability-related inquiry" because the response is likely to disclose the existence of the person's disability. The ADA doesn't allow such inquiries unless there's evidence that pandemic symptoms will cause a direct threat.

2. Medical inquiry How much information can we request from employees who call in sick or report to work feeling ill?

   You can ask such employees if they are experiencing influenza-like symptoms, such as fever or chills and a cough or sore throat. Make sure that you and your managers keep all information about employee illnesses as a confidential medical record in compli ance with the ADA.

   Because the coronavirus has become more severe, these types of questions (even if they're disability related) are justified by a reasonable belief that the coronavirus poses a direct threat to the workplace or the employee him/herself.

3. Home work During a pandemic, can we send employees home (and/or require them to stay home) if they display influenza-like symptoms?

   Yes. The CDC says employees who become ill with symptoms of influenza-like illness at work during a pandemic should leave the workplace. Advising such workers to go home is not a disability-related action if the illness is akin to seasonal influenza. Also, the action would be permitted under the ADA if the illness were serious enough to pose a direct threat to other employees, customers or the employee him/herself.

4. Taking temperature Can we take employees' temperatures to determine whether they have a fever?

   The EEOC says this is...