The Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced that all workers who, as of March 13, 2020, entered the Kingdom, shall stay at home, and keep self-quarantined. They shall be deemed on sick leave for as long as they remain quarantined, MOH declared. Certain dates shall be specified for the sick leaves. The Ministry posted on its Twitter account an infographic listing those countries and dates. They are as follows:
- Starting from February 28, for those coming from: China, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Turkey, Singapore, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Iran;
- Starting from March 8, for those coming from: France, Spain, Indonesia, Switzerland and Germany;
- Starting from March 11, for those coming from: UK, Austria, Denmark, USA, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
The workers coming from the countries listed above can get said sick leaves through ‘Sehhaty’ mobile application, MOH pointed out. After logging into the application, the worker should select the ‘Sick Leave’ tab, and then review the application interface to specify the sick leave details: duration, the health facility where the worker was screened for COVID-19, name of the examining physician, etc. After that, the user should select the ‘Share’ icon at the bottom of the screen, and choose the application to be used for sharing the sick leave form, or choose ‘Print’ to preview and print out the form.
These precautionary measures come as part of the fight against the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), and a continuation of the Kingdom’s preventive strategy meant to protect the health and well-being of the society, and curb the spread of the virus.
MOH called on everyone to contact the 937 Service Center for any COVID-19-associated inquiries. In the meantime, it underscored the importance of getting information from the official sources, and not listening to rumors.