#Sacramento may pay COVID-19 patients to stay home and quarantine

Sacramento is considering paying $1,000 to low-income workers infected with COVID-19 to stay home and quarantine.

Health officials in the California city said the proposed stipend would provide the equivalent of $12.50 an hour for two 40-hour work weeks to those who don’t qualify for unemployment or other assistance programs, such as illegal immigrants, news station KOVR reported.

“We want to make sure they get a stipend to stay at home so they don’t feel like they have to go to work,” Dr. Peter Beilenson, the Sacramento County Health Services Director, told the outlet.

“We have had a large amount of cases in Sacramento County be in migrant workers, day workers and agricultural workers, and a lot of them work on hourly wages and can’t afford to take time off.”

Beilenson said the city would use contact tracers to make sure people isolate and then the agency will give them the stipend after the quarantine period is over.

The agency said it plans to discuss logistics in the next few weeks with community organizations, the Sacramento Bee reported.

San Francisco County was the first in the state to offer a similar stipend — paying a minimum of $1,285.60 for two weeks and a maximum of $2,2571.20 for four weeks for quarantine, KOVR reported.